Fr. Richard Rohr - The "Second Half of Life"

and now to introduce our two o'clock interfaith lecture series here in the Hall of philosophy where this week we are presenting the theme falling upward a week with father Richard Rohr our distinguished guest today is once again thank God indeed father Richard were father Richard needs no introduction as the overwhelming numbers of all of you who have traveled here from all over the country to sit at his feet will attest for the recordings however and for those who will enjoy the recordings in the future I will just say a few words about the core of father Richard's life father Richard is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher who bears witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the perennial tradition he is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico province and founder of the Center for action and contemplation in Albuquerque New Mexico father Richard's teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy which is practices of contemplation and self-emptying expressing itself in radical compassion particularly for the socially marginalized by the Richard is the author of numerous books and serves as academic dean of the Living School for action and contemplation drawing upon Christian trees place within the perennial tradition the mission of the Living School is to produce compassionate and powerfully learning individuals who will work for positive change in the world based on awareness of our common union with God and with all beings during this precious time with father Richard all of us have been reminded of what is most important about being human and what we need to remember in order to live lives of authenticity meaning and purpose whether we are in the first half of our lives or the second or perhaps transitioning which is indeed a lifelong challenge we will leave from this precious time here with father Richard more peaceful and more loving if we have indeed internalized the wisdom that father Richard has so eloquently and heartfully shared with us may we all say a fervent may it be so father Richard we are blessed beyond expression by your time and your presence with us may we all bless you with our eternal gratitude and sincere love [Applause] the title of father roars lecture today is the second half of life you will be pleased to know that father Richard will be doing a book signing today at the hall of missions on the porch immediately following his lecture and that his books what is left of them will be sold there as well we are grateful to the Eileen and Warren Martin lectureship for emerging studies in Bible and theology and for their endowment which sponsors the interfaith lecture series throughout this week with father Richard so now please let's give another very warm welcome to father Richard Ward and let's hear the roar for all the way from Smith Wilks and the Hall of Christ and around the country thank thank thank what did I do to deserve this really all this in heaven - what well you have been sincerely a delight to be here it's a delight to be among mature people where that is not the norm anymore I don't think it doesn't appear to be so and I guess I have to start by saying how can I talk I'm not sure I've earned the right to talk about the second half of life but I have to try or I couldn't have written the book the book book wouldn't have come to completion but you notice it's the smallest section of the book because I've talked to some hospice workers and end-of-life care people and they they really say a lot of people don't get it get it till the last three days three hours even three minutes but the good thing at least I've heard consistently is most people do get it what it means and what it doesn't mean because then you have no choice except to go for broke the great surrender called death at the beginning of chapter 12 I start with a quote from the Dalai Lama and he says I think he probably is quoting others who've said the same thing learn and obey the rules very well so you will know how to break them properly that's at the heart of the matter did I finish my story the other day about the loyal soldier in Japan that they had to discharge him yeah I don't think I did very well but it's it's a good example of knowing the rules and then knowing you know that apply anymore and knowing how to move beyond them to what works it really is the difference between knowledge and wisdom and I have to believe that the work of the spirit the work of the church should have been and often has been to lead us to wisdom but it's more been a catechetical course in knowledge information and information of itself can't get you there what wisdom is one of the many wonderful definitions is to know when the knowledge applies and when it doesn't and you know what that is it's mercy it's compassion it's understanding and yet people who are still at the knowledge stage our lost age they're almost the same they'll hate you for it because you'll look like you're coloring outside the lines now there is such a thing it's just coloring outside the lines I'm not talking about creating rebels but people who know the rules well enough to know when they don't apply it has to be a good judge it should be a good confessor it's pretty clear in both Jesus and Paul who it's amazing that created a a law-and-order religion out of two people who didn't have much good to say about law you do know that don't you I mean Jesus goes on and on the law says I say the law says I say the law is first half of life compared to put it simply for most of us the Ten Commandments to the eight Beatitudes they're night and day I'm not gonna throw out the Ten Commandments but I don't meditate on them very much if at all I got that with my parents in the first half of life now the trouble were facing now is a whole bunch of people didn't I don't know if anybody here is from Texas it's my time to pick on Texas they're right next to us you know down there and if you've been to any Texas the courthouse city they always on the courthouse grounds have the 10 commandments there they are one two three four five and I asked I really did I'm not making this up for the sake of a good talk the people who are giving me the tour I said have you ever seen a Texas courthouse that has the eight Beatitudes well well no blessed are the poor in spirit blessed are the meek see that's a huge leap in consciousness it's about ten levels of maturing before you can really even assent to though the eight Beatitudes as having any level of truth now what we're dealing with in our society and most of Western countries developed countries is that people and I'm gonna give you an arbitrary date don't make a commandment out of this but 1968 is usually the date we chart moving for modernism to post-modernism modernism told us about getting educated and following the rules we would save the world so we Catholics put all our money into Catholic schools educate educate educate thank God I couldn't be talking to you now I wasn't given one of those wonderful education but then after 68 when we saw that all this education all this religion and all this law and all this knowledge it was countries with just such that that produced the two world wars and the Holocaust and so what our youngers did in great part is throughout the whole thing if there's no order that works let's just live with disorder so we moved into a world of disorder after 1968 and any of you were formed you young ones after that you didn't know that's what you were being raised in but you were you couldn't assert anything to be always true or even usually true there's nothing worse to say on the college campus you'll be taken up immediately or taken down immediately there are no meta-narratives to use the big phrase and here now you're gonna hear me talking out of two sides of my mouth because they're in part right that's what the prophets said they they attacked the priesthood and the lawgivers and those were the ones who killed Jesus to show us forever how wrong power can be and so we finally came to that in secular society I'm just gonna call it critical consciousness those who are old enough we didn't have critical consciousness in the 40s and 50s we didn't we all liked Ike it's okay it's alright I lived in Kansas right down the road you know there was no such thing as conservativism as we now think of it we were all conservative little kinder I might say but we all loved America and loved our churches and filled our churches and obeyed our parents sort of it held together so what spiral dynamics calls the blue level of consciousness it's a rather happy level you that it only works if everything is homogeneous once the homogeneity of a culture are a country begins to break down the blue level falls apart and that's what's been happening ever since 1968 didn't just start with this president it's in major deconstruction now and that's the word that's used where there are no absolutes there are no normals even there's just whatever the ego wants to do minute by minute by minute so in our living school I teach the students and it's gonna sound almost childish to some of you but stay with me it won't I don't think at the end I want you to picture three boxes the first box I'm gonna call order that's the normal conservative 1950s law-abiding church-going worldview there is a meaning I'm a part of it and I'm going to defend it and it makes very happy people doesn't produce a high degree of mental illness because the mind does need coherence some degree of coherence the second box we're gonna call disorder disorder emerge with a vengeance in the mid-1960s where America that thought of itself as a non militaristic country through the Vietnam War had to say oh my god were militaristic too and that's only grown in perception although the more it tries to emerge the more the voices of denial and repression will also emerge we thought we were a fairly equal opportunity country and we've thank God we initiated our war against poverty to try to help those who are at the bottom of the ladder we recognize that America's original sin which continues to this day is racism and we had our wonderful and necessary civil rights movement most of us didn't know particularly if you lived in the north not that we didn't participate in it what's called reconstruction was pretty much just reconstructing everything that we thought the Civil War undid now the black people knew that we didn't know what though oh they got their freedom they got their freedom yeah see there's a whole bunch of things you don't know when you're the beneficiaries of the system but at any rate all of this became exposed and created after the after 68 the arbitrary year a very cynical attitude about Authority about law about elders about even the possibility of truth it just just doesn't exist and I'm sure that's been the hardship many of you have had to go through and raising your own children and grandchildren this the same assumptions aren't there that we sort of maybe probably naively took for granted now what it means today to be called a conservative is anyone who tries to keep shoring up the first box order at all costs all evidence to the contrary we were right it was true our absolutes are the only absolutes it shows itself in every culture not just ours people we would call progressives or liberals tend to be trapped without knowing it in box to perpetual deconstruction perpetual cynicism not you and I mean that in great part because most of you it appears are believers that gave you some absolutes to hold on to but if you threw those out - they're the only absolute remaining was your own ego and you became the frame of reference you became the chooser you became the decider according to your comfort and convenience and so forth them now there's a third box and I call that naturally reorder so here's what the second half of life it seems to me is is most easily described as where you hold on to what's good and essential from the first box you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater you don't overreact you're not a rebel you're not an iconoclast you're not a libertarian in the bad sense there's a good sense - that's a trouble with words it's always a good meaning and a bad meaning you know on you you got to clarify so much so it's easier just to be black and white as we see in our country uh we don't like subtlety Americans just don't like subtlety at any rate many who call themselves well forgive me out in the West we even call it East Coast intellectuals I guess I'm in the middle of them right now are you terrible people East Coast intellectuals some most people who were all educated there's great disdain from those who've stayed in the first box toward those who are ensconced in the second box now here's precisely the definition of the third box when you can put the two together and they don't need to block one another out the best of the traditional and the best of the progressive again to get back to the Jewish prophets who modeled this we call them radical radical traditionalists they knew the tradition well enough to critique the present by the sources and the values and the documents of the tradition that's the only way you can reform anything by the way I think it's why I'm believe it or not I'm still in good standing I don't know how it happened because I paid my dues I know the rules I'm still a Franciscan I I i did get investigated by the vatican about 15 years ago they sent me a whole list of my possible heresies i answered each one and about a medium-sized paragraph and then lived in anxiety for four months as i waited the guillotine to come down on me and i got this small paragraph little letter from some Italian Cardinal you have answered all of our questions to our satisfaction continue to preach the gospel see this is a good thing about being Catholic if you get Authority on your side they can't touch you you poor Protestant ministers are much more exposed you know just a little program now or something has to go around the parish and you can be judged to be a heretic so I had to learn the rules well enough and what what the Franciscans gave me was historical theology I hope you've heard a hint of it here where they didn't just teach me the conclusions of the Council of Trent which was highly reactionary or even the 20th century consensus but the history of how we got to every single doctrine century by century and then in every case you know it wasn't always that way do know that Catholics it wasn't always this way they liked to make you think it was but it wasn't just wasn't the historical documents are there but the conservative wants to pretend the Latin Mass fell from a glad bag in heaven love to tell him Latin was the language of Jesus oppressors what why would you want to speak Latin although I had to learn it but history just turns itself on its head again and again and if you did a historical theology of your denomination I bet you'd find the same things I hope you historians are loving it but I do mean it history good history is an immense liberation an immense liberation from the present and I think one reason we're in this crisis and it is is because Americans have little use for history little knowledge of history I mean I not don't want to offend these particular States but I've had letters in the last year that really seemed to think Christianity began in one case in Alabama and another case in South Carolina isn't that wonderful oh my god it says for the first century first millennium say about that what they let pass for Christianity which emerged from slaveholder religion by the way would be unrecognizable to the first thousand years as the gospel of Jesus Christ I'm not trying to say God doesn't love them I'm not saying they're not good people but the agenda they're working with is so limited so what's the agenda we're moving toward that term I used if you want to pursue it further spiral dynamics Ken Wilber school calls it integral theory and what happened about 20 years ago maybe 25 now his scholars put together together all of these different schools of developmental psychology Piaget Fowler Kohlberg Erik Erikson Carol Gilligan Ken Wilber himself and they overlaid them and they said you know they're saying the same thing there is a common consensus on the direction of a mature person and that's what I'm calling here the second half of life if you grow up without major dysfunction major violence major disillusionment you will become less violent more non-dual more compassionate and more inclusive if you stay toward the bottom of the schema you're more exclusive tribal is the word they usually use you you really think that might makes right and violence will solve all problems power will solve all so they put all these schemas together and the common word used today is well you can google it with this anyway these spiral dynamics but even that term spiral was brilliantly chosen because it shows that it's not a straight line you get it you lose it you get it you lose it you get it you lose it do you know certainly if you come to New Mexico and look at our petroglyphs on the rock faces the most common petroglyph not just there but I'm told all over the world is the spiral and the fact that the spiral is so consistently found in the artwork of the Ancients tells us that they were somehow seeing it seems to me this is the nature of reality now most of us were given instead the Western philosophy of progress everything's getting better and better and better now I was also raised as I bet a lot of you were on Hegel's method or explanation called thesis antithesis synthesis it made a lot of sense and it still does and your job is to balance out somehow the thesis with the antithesis and that will lead you to a new synthesis well we've learned something better by Cynthia boor show the anglican woman priest in our school and she learned it I know this is going to start sounding esoteric and scary but it isn't something just a little more subtle and a little wiser from Gurdjieff the Russian mystic she learned that I'm going to use this to try to explain third the second half of life which she calls third force thinking here it is in a very abbreviated form but you're those East Coast intellectuals feel you'll figure it out whenever there's a new arising of consciousness ger jeff says a new quasi consensus about how things are take the French Revolution 1789 he said as certain as the dawn he calls that holy arising there will be holy denial now he calls it holy hold on to that there we will be pushed back against it and I hope this helps us understand what we're in the middle of right now holy denial I mean Napoleon in 1830 and equality and fraternity we have an emperor again eleven years later let's push back after the Second Vatican Council ending in the mid sixties we have let's be honest two popes who barely agreed with it it opened the doors a little too much that's why poor Pope Francis has to carry the brunt and the weight that he does today so wholly affirming holy pushback holy denial here's the rub then Gurdjieff says you have to wait for holy reconciling and he describes it as sort of a X force we would call it in the Christian world grace you can't manufacture it you can't totally create it it comes it's a creatio ex nihilo it's a gift from God a new person a new lien ah I dia a new idea from nowhere a new consensus that feels like it fell heaven and we're in that period of waiting for the x-factor we don't have it yet and in this time of darkness it feels like there's not a lot of hope the only people who will be able to have it they don't need to have my explanations but are people who are somehow held by grace in this unique space where I don't have to have an answer for everything where knowing is balanced by unknowing which by the way is the core meaning of faith or I don't need to know I don't need to be certain I don't need to be right once you lose that you get a lot of arrogant people who have to be right who have to be certain who have to know I like Pope Francis himself where did he come from I know Argentina but that's too obvious I I mean have you seen those curmudgeonly Cardinals they voted for him they they could all shoot themselves now you know what did we do so I guess God gave us Catholics that although a lot of Protestants like him more than the Catholics do to give us some hope in this dark time because he clearly represents a higher level of consciousness just like a Nelson Mandela our Cesar Chavez or are any of those who open the door and that's holy reconciling a new idea that begins to be broadly received and get ready holy reconciling according to Gurdjieff if you want to believe him becomes the new holy affirming and we start all over again that's the spiral it's not a straight line it's three steps forward two steps backward three steps forward two steps backward that's not hard to believe if you read history we never get it and perpetually hold on to it we just always lose it again and again and again and then there needs to be a new arising a new consensus but it always moves toward inclusivity toward non-violence moves toward a worldview where we don't have to be Imperial and right to be happy but it's usually a minority position as the gospel probably always will be and one of you brought up the metaphor of leaven the other day I think that's what we're talking about don't wait for Chris andum I don't think it's going to happen but there's always going to be people like you that I can talk to and others can talk to in this way and you're not panicking and running out of the room because to some degree whether you know it or not you've attained non-dual consciousness where you can hold to contraries where you can hold two opposing forces like Jesus on the cross where you can live with contradictions it's almost a definition of maturity if you've ever worked with what they used to call maybe they still do dry drunks they've stopped drinking but they're still horrible to live with because they're so absolutist in their thinking it's all-or-nothing thinking that's I'd become an addict too you're miserable if you're an all-or-nothing thinker because there's always always something to be upset about someone is always wrong someone has to be killed in its extreme forms so we've been given something almost the geometric image of the cross that gave us freedom to move beyond it let me end with what I end the book with and that'll leave us I hope enough time for your questions and of course it had to be a quote or a poem from Thomas Merton he died in 68 Robert Kennedy was killed in 68 and Martin Luther King was killed in 68 the death of three such huge huge possibility thinkers is is symbolically what collapsed us into the nihilism we have today there we're gonna kill all the prophets of course Jesus said that he said you killed all the prophets and you're gonna kill me because a prophet by definition sees as I think it's Abraham Heschel says sees everything an octave higher and those of us who don't read reality an octave higher we're always threatened by high level consciousness they look like heretics they look wrong they look like sinners they look dangerous well anyway I had read this particular poem when I was able to I gave the retreat to the Chapas and I got 70 in 1985 and the abbot asked what he could give me for payment I said well I don't need any money but I'd sure like to do a Hermitage in Mertens Hermitage so he gave it to me for a month springtime in Kentucky how beautiful it was and the poem I opened to on in his own book of his own poems was entitled when in the soul of the serene disciple is the best I can do to describe the second half of life when in the soul of the serene disciple with no more fathers to imitate authority figures people are absolutely right and always right you lose the need for that you don't need to rebel against father's but neither do you need to be on bended knee before them can you find the middle position yeah most people are one or the other they need to hate them or they need to worship them with no more fathers to imitate poverty is a success and he's not just talking about physical material poverty but what Jesus is referring to in the first beatitude poverty is a success poverty of spirit where I don't need to be right I don't need to win I don't need to make more money I don't need to oppress anybody else so I can be right it's a small thing to say the roof is gone you don't even have a house stars as well as friends are angry with the noble ruin eyes lost faith so many of our just I've just been sure and delighted over the years that I lost faith and thought mother Teresa lost faith too Saints depart in all directions from such people because they live with ambiguity they can live with darkness they can live with other nuts they've learned the rules well enough to know how to break the rules I hope you've had at least one pastor in your life like that sweet old Irishman we had father Flanagan be still there's no longer any need of comment it was a lucky wind that blew away your halo with your cares you don't need to appear holy Saint Philip Neri used to walk through the streets of Rome when they called him a saint with a bottle of booze in one hand and told dirty jokes so they'd stop calling him a saint I know a few Franciscans who do the same it was a lucky wind that blew away is halo with his cares a lucky sea that drowned his reputation once you have a reputation you got to live up to it it's a trap it's a prison that's why I can't dress up in the the right clothes all the time I love my brown robe the Italian ladies kiss my hand I look like st. Anthony I can't I can't go there because I'm not Saint Anthony I'm Richard here you will find neither a proverb nor memorandum there are no ways no methods to admire poverty is no achievement your God now lives in your emptiness like an affliction in your emptiness it sounds almost Buddhist what it is what choice remains well to be ordinary is not a choice it's the usual freedom of men without their visions the young zealot and I was one is the young man with his vision the gospel isn't really idealism its utter absolute realism if if you don't get that message from the crucified this is realism this is where life leads you sooner or later there's not idealism there we tried to make it into that because we like a happily ever after story now it does become that of course but as I told you were morning prayer we didn't get the resurrection it was only about Jesus it wasn't about us which it clearly is so I hope whatever I've tried to say these days is about resurrection is about a second half of life that you don't create you don't manufacture you don't figure out you just drop into it just stay out of the way don't take yourselves too seriously make sure you can laugh now people usually stop there I mean laugh at yourself and let other people laugh at you there's a certain head of state that I've never seen laughs brilliant and allows no one to laugh at him that's pretty much a sign that it's ice fault I guess I don't know what his story is but he never got it what it is to be a mensch as the Jewish people say a human being one who can hold together all the contraries all the paradoxes all the mysteries even without understanding them thank you [Applause] well aren't you so building on that wisdom that you've shared with us now for four days we have some more few some more but few precious minutes to share a conversation with you father Richard and so we're starting to line up and I wonder if we'll ever get to all the questions that people are carrying with them so we're going to start out with a question from the hall of Christ and that it's a very short question because it's something about which you have been speaking all week but I think the questioner is asking for a dictionary definition which is short so the questioner asked what is your dictionary definition of reality well I'm going to come out at the other side I say it in the universal Christ book I think that the word God is reality with a face I'll stay with that don't throw it out too quick when you give reality a face that you can enter into conversation with and love with that's God so I guess excellent definition so let's go from one side to the other we'll start with this side on the left and we'll have very short questions there and short answers thank you very much father Richard today's talk blew me away as a former altar boy who graduated from my Franciscan High School in 1968 and afterwards became a radical hippie with complete chaos and I pursued Buddhism all my life and I've only returned to a Christian understanding with reading you and Matthew Fox and other more say progressive understandings of the Christ my question is I have a friend who loses his temper when he is dealing with talking to his friends and being faced with support for tyranny and oppression that we're seeing prevalent in our current political situation and I'd like to get some advice on how to really be non-dual about it and to not get into afflictive emotions when you're dealing with your with friends and family and there's this disparity of perspective well we're all struggling with that I get the question in some format every every gathering how are we supposed to talk now just know that a face to face oppositional only evokes more of the same because you paint someone without meaning to in a corner and then they have to come back reasserting their position so the most gently you can state without humiliating the other your own the phrase I have found myself using the most often is and I again I try to say it slowly and quietly well I have to think about that that's all it stops the momentum that they almost want to bait you with and you you're saying in effect I'm not gonna buy the bait because dualistic thinking only leads to more dualistic thinking so if you can somehow just express some kind of doubt that I have to give that a little more prayer a little more time a little more thought that's the best way I know how to a PO to enter in to the the nature of conversations today I hope that helps a bit I know it's not complete and it will turn to the other side obviously to get up here every day Abha Dickey thank you for your welcome your grace and presence you talked about letting go yesterday as a component of separating from yourself to see the humanity and the oneness and others but oftentimes this is difficult upon entering the depths of ourselves we see things through our true self lens we see things in their rawness in which there's so much beauty but also so much difficulties in pain which is for many possibly why we avoid going there in the first place consciously or unconsciously you also suggest yesterday that before the truth sets us free that it tends to make us miserable and told us how part of the man's initiation rites of the Masai warriors require them to weep for the suffering of the world yeah what's your question my question is is this with that context for myself and for others listening who care deeply about the downtrodden who stand in solidarity with the poor and who want to help the marginalized communities thank you for your patience what could you suggest to us that will help us to let go so that Wow in our quiet moments and feeling so deeply for the pain and suffering of the world we don't allow ourselves to get dragged down into the pits of sadness by the weight that surrounds the reality of life suffering I'm just going to say gaze upon the crucified a long time and you'll know that he said it was it's always been this way that doesn't mean you don't work for to change it but you've before you can say no to reality you first must say a radical foundational yes with all the information that's crammed into that wonderful head of yours we Eastern intellectuals will gladly welcome into our club in the meantime Ken Wilber says that consciousness always keeps growing but it can be slowed down and in the 60s narcissism basically started to slow down the growth of consciousness and I think we're still in that my question is how do you see that growth of consciousness is speeding up I really do see a lot of examples of it the amount of creativity is just overwhelming I was invited about three years ago to speak to the leadership team at Google out on the west coast they're smart people out there too and I mean even the fact that they would ask a Catholic priest this is a different arena this is a different realm our own staff in Albuquerque we have almost 50 people Jim my assistant son is one of them and they're Millennials most half of them Millennials they don't have my work ethic let me say that first they come in at 9:30 and they have their latte they're already leaving in 3:30 I but the things they turn out I it's just different it's a whole different focus what I realize is they do a lot of their work at home on screens because they can do that and the job always appears to get done but we're seeing that in in so many areas I mean just the amount of books that are pouring out I don't know how Barnes & Noble keeps up with all the books you know the study of eggplants there's a book on everything so the holy reconciling is emerging a very creative human beings and many care you know dietrich bonhoeffer the the Lutheran mystic that I which the Catholic Church would canonized he said we're entering into a period of religion las' Christianity and these very same Millennials on the staff I don't know how many of them go to church I have a feeling not many but they love what I'm saying I don't know why and they they they love the gospel in a very different way than we did it's really not about worshipping Jesus for them it's about following Jesus and we put way too much effort and energy into the correct worship form which only divided us is the way the Methodists do it this is the way the Catholics do it this way the Presbyterians do it who cares really with what we're up against now with the state of the planet we don't have time to argue about worship services I say that after delighting in what we're doing here each morning at nine o'clock Wow good prayers good music so when it's done right it's still wonderful and I don't think it'll ever go out of fashion we need it to congeal our hearts and our minds and our community that a new kind of creativity and courage is imagining my generation did not have courage to not go to church on Sunday and I use that word intentionally they do you can call it wrong if you want but I just see an awful lot of them carrying about the pours water and Nick Nick Aragua do you understand I didn't even know about Nicaragua much less that they didn't have water on the right hello father Richard I'm David from Virginia just another one of the East Coast intellectuals my question for you is are you aware of the suggestion by some that the violence that we think is occurring in our society today is an illusion brought about by the media that the reality is the percentage of human beings living at peace together in the world today is greater than it any other time in human history you wanted to know whether you heard of it and agreed but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about violence and I I know you weren't saying that yeah okay yes hi father my question goes a little bit back to what you were just asking or talking to a minute ago my husband is a minister and we've served in churches from small mining towns in minutes inner-city st. Louis and one thing we have heard consistently from these aging congregations is they want us to bring in young families they want us to bring in children and our obstacle is also the opposite side of that that the elders of congregations not all of course but many don't want to deal with the noise and the nuisance and the mess of that first half generation and so my question is how can we find a way to address the open hostility to having you know the first half in our congregations and get people to show up to intergenerational things and inspire our elders to take the place that we need them to have in our communities all right now you're gonna hate me for this strictly speaking little ones are not in the first half of life they're little lovable animals you understand and we all but I know what you're saying well I think we have to grant the the older generation space but they if they are truly second half of life people not just chronologically but really soulfully then they're going to be the first to understand the necessity of the extended family and that the extended family is the nature of the church now that doesn't mean they can't have different classes or be in different rooms and so forth but yeah it is bothersome very often how older people are so bothered by the noise of children that's not so good on their part but how do you teach them that tells me they're they're elderly but they're not elders yeah yeah but they have to know that you are doing something to protect their quiet time - or their quiet space or their quiet room not all the time but once in a while okay I wish I could give you a better answer so father we have a question from Smith Vauxhall we're happy to have them with us today and the questioner says I practice neutrality however are some things right or wrong yes yes you know stay with me you first have to succeed at dualistic clarity you first have to know there is this is good this is not good now that doesn't mean you hold to that in a a hateful way or a declarative judicious way but we're not we're not one to teach you fuzzy thinking all right and that's what a lot of people think progressive people are fuzzy thinkers first you succeed I said a form of this yesterday at dualistic clarity and then you wait till you can find a mature non dual compassionate patient understanding response before you speak which might mean very often you don't speak because it takes a while to get there I for those you know the anagram I'm a 1 and my capital sin is anger resentment and when people say things that are just absolutely stupid Oh God I have to bite my tongue and be understood them but I've learned how to do it I really have and we all have to learn how to do it we it doesn't help to pour gasoline on the fire so as I thought I said yesterday if you if I'm going to say dualistic thinking is wrong that I'm dualistic no we need both dual and non dual start with dual clarity are we end up with this fuzzy thinking that says both sides in charlottesville were the same that's not where we want to go okay so people will misuse it bless you Father for your insights and inspiration my name is Darren McCarty I'm from Erie Pennsylvania and my husband died yesterday and I'm wondering if you have any advice on how to honor the memory and legacy of loved one without becoming trapped in the past and in nostalgia and regrets well first of all I'm surprised you're here today what made you think you should come here today and I mean that sincerely I had planned on well I if I could figure out a way to get here I had hopes to get here this week because I have been a student of yours for many years um and I thought with the topics you're speaking to this seemed more appropriate would be helpful to this okay grief is the emotion that has the most mystery and depth to it because you can't normally blame anybody you'll try your mind will try to blame somebody who caused and maybe someone did cause your husband's death but that's why it job sitting on the dumb dung heap picking at his sores is almost the symbol of someone at grief you just have to wade through it time and quiet is of the essence don't and journaling maybe reading maybe but don't fill your the next weeks with crowds like this this is not where you want to be and I know you're going to feel lonely I hope you have some support yeah okay well good draw up on that but you're going to be drawn into a kind of aloneness that has the potential to be very enriching over months even days and weeks thank you thank you I'm dick Rodriguez from Fredonia in New York and you opened the door to my question how does the Ania Graham correspond to the transition from our first half of life to our second half of life well the first thought that comes to my mind is it tells us that there's at least nine different ways to make that transition and there will be nine different patterns we ones will try to fix it and make it right and do it perfectly so maybe just knowing that the two will try to help other people to avoid oh that's what you are to avoid moving to helping themselves really you know you know work down at the soup kitchen instead of helping themselves so just knowing what I still continue although they don't perfectly correlate call the the capital sins we all in moments of stress and hunger and tiredness what are the alcoholics say you know what I'm talking about we all go back to our home base and there we become compulsive doing more and more of the thing that does doesn't know so if you're lucky enough to know that you're a to just watch for any in your case excessive helping and caring and what can even become busybody making yourself necessary in other people's lives but it does come from a good heart please believe that you do want to help you've got a heart of love but it can also be an avoiding of your own journey Thank You father we have four minutes or maybe only one question we'll see over here yes to the moon oh yes father I was Catholic all my life Catholic grade school Catherine gates cool Catherine high school Catholic college every step of the way in being a Catholic reaching for what you're trying to give us today was put down it's a mystery don't go there don't go there stay in the box and my question is I feel like I have an idea of what you found and what you're trained to tell us how did you find it in the Catholic Church in three minutes well you know for me it's easy cuz I get to create the context and that's probably one of the reasons women rightly want to become priests when when I get to create the context it's easy for me to be Catholic but just know that the Catholic Church is a breath from far left too far right more than any church I know how that might not be your experience at your local parish and now I guess I enjoy if that's the right word I enjoy a certain seniority there they hope and I'll be gone soon and but the other thing is the protection of the Franciscans what you might even as a Catholic not know were you educated by any religious order you got to speak in the mic it doesn't matter it doesn't matter which group it was the Catholic Church to most people looks like a giant pyramid pope Cardinals Archbishop's bishops bishops deacons it's just when you really get inside of it it's surrounded by what we call religious orders who are satellites of immense freedom Sisters of Charity Sisters of Providence Jesuits Benedict we sort of do our own thing if you'd really know want to know man was Jesuits yours was Jesuits yeah okay you know I don't think in our well no we do have a picture of Pope Francis now but at the previous two popes that don't hate me but we didn't have a picture of them we had plenty of pictures of Clare and Francis you understand our our gospel storyline is very different and I came first of all to be a Franciscan before I became be a priest it makes priests from religious orders very often not always considerably different and considerably more broad-minded because we're not really trained to be sacrament priests when you're when your job is just to keep doing the sacraments doing the sacraments you tend it's it's a built in your oblem you tend to become juridical to control the door ways of coming into the church I don't suffer from that but that's no credit to me the Franciscans have always defended me let me end with one story a provincial is the head of a province and every new bishop we've had in Santa Fe has tried to plant a wedge between me and the Franciscans usually corners them in the sacristy after confirmation and one this particular provincial was a Hispanic brilliant man and he shouldered up to him and he said is your office getting the same complaints our office is getting about father Richards preaching and without skipping a beat he says actually we get more complaints about yours than we do so when you're protected by see a provincial has the Equality of a bishop they can't touch us the way they poor Dawson priests parish priests would have a much harder time they really do so for me it's easy I get to enjoy the breath of Catholic philosophy theology and history and art and culture and that's good don't throw that away easily thank you your so father Richard we have a question that came from the hall of Christ that we're not going to let you answer because first of all we don't have time and secondly I would like you to come back and spend a lot more time on this question and the questioner wanted you to say more about mysticism and the perennial traditions that would take a lot of time and we're going to hope that he can come back and do that with us so some of you may still have the blessing of being with father tomorrow morning those of us who have walked this journey with you through these four afternoons will be forever grateful we will hold your inner in our hearts and we will keep on learning and listening and we thank you

Channel: Chautauqua Institution

Views: 130,207

Rating: 4.6988306 out of 5

Keywords: Chautauqua Institution, CHQ

Id: YngpUoh2AxU

Length: 71min 39sec (4299 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 24 2020