The spiritual life has much more to do with subtraction than it does with addition. Yet I think most Christians today are involved in great part in spirituality of addition.
The [consumerist] worldview is the only one most of us have ever known. We see reality, experiences, events, other people, and things—in fact, everything—as objects for our personal consumption. Even religion, Scripture, sacraments, worship services, and meritorious deeds become ways to advance ourselves—not necessarily ways to love God or neighbor.
The nature of the [consumerist] mind is that things (and often people!) are there for me. Finally, even God becomes an object for my consumption. Religion looks good on my résumé, and anything deemed “spiritual” is a check on my private worthiness list. Some call it spiritual consumerism. It is not the Gospel.
~Adapted from Richard Rohr, Radical Grace: Daily Meditations
Soul knowledge sends you in the opposite direction from consumerism. It’s not addition that makes one holy, but subtraction: stripping the illusions, letting go of the pretense, exposing the false self, breaking open the heart and the understanding, not taking one’s private self too seriously. Conversion is more about unlearning than learning.
In a certain sense we are on the utterly wrong track. We are climbing while Jesus is descending, and in that we reflect the pride and the arrogance of Western civilization, always trying to accomplish, perform, and achieve. We transferred much of that to our version of Christianity and made the Gospel into spiritual consumerism. The ego is still in charge. There is not much room left for God when the false self takes itself and its private self-development that seriously.
All we can really do is get ourselves out of the way, and honestly we can’t even do that. It is done to us through this terrible thing called suffering.
~Adapted from Richard Rohr, Radical Grace: Daily Meditations
A common saying is, “God helps those who help themselves.” I think the phrase can be understood helpfully; but in most practical situations it is not true. Scripture clearly says, in many ways, that God helps those who trust in God, not those who help themselves.
We need to be told that very strongly because of our “do-it-yourself” orientation. As educated people, as Americans, as middle-class people who have practiced climbing, we are accustomed to doing it ourselves. It takes applying the brakes, letting go of our own plans, allowing Another, and experiencing power from a Larger Source to really move to higher awareness. Otherwise, there is no real transformation, but only increased willpower. As if the one with the most willpower wins! Willfulness is quite different than willingness. They are two different energetic styles and normally yield very different fruit.
~Adapted from Richard Rohr, Radical Grace: Daily Meditations
Risk all for love, Jesus tells us, even your own life. Give that to me and let me save it. The healthy religious person is the one who allows God to do the saving, while I do my part to bring up the rear. It always feels like a loss of power and certitude at the beginning, which is why it is called faith, and why true Biblical faith is probably somewhat rare.
Mary, the Mother of Jesus, sums up in herself the attitude of one of the ”little poor ones” whom God is able to save because they are not self-entitled (the anawim as in Zephaniah 2:3, 3:12). She is deeply aware of her own emptiness without God (Luke 1:52). She longs for the fulfillment of God’s promise (1:54); she has left herself open, available for God’s work (1:45, 49). And when the call comes, she makes a full personal surrender: “Let it be!” (1:38).
~Adapted from Richard Rohr, Radical Grace: Daily Meditations
