Chewing slowly on Richard Rohr’s book, “Adam’s Return”. I am reading this book, because I have realized how much of life I need help with, how much I need a mentor or discipler in my life. I have always read books and learned about life through experience. I believe people who have to learn this way are often called fools. I don’t mean the book reading, but the learning through experience. This experiential education is slow and painful and full of failures. I am tired of being on the slow track of life, so I have finally found the humility to ask for help.
I asked Seth Barnes if he would disciple me, he said of course and gave a cool list of reasons why he would, this was encouraging. He also said that I would need to initiate this, be honest and open, because he is not a mind reader. I had hoped he could read my mind, because I sure as heck can’t. I can say what I think I think, I think. Anyway, this book is the first one Seth assigned to me, so I have decided to really try to get all I can out of this book.
David Hearn is Andrew Shearman’s son-in-law and introduced this book to us at our training in Cusco, Peru. So when I saw that Seth had it on his table, I grabbed it to do a quick review and while I was holding it, Seth assigned the book to me. While in Cusco, Linnea and I spent some time with David, who seems to have had a decent career in the Air Force, and is, I believe, only a year or two older than I am. But way smarter and way ahead of me.
David commented in my last blog on Rohr, and I agree with his statement so far. I like Rohr’s ideas and especially his insights into men. I like the way he makes me think, but he has very different view on the spiritual world than I do (at least it seems to me). I can’t tell how much he actually believes in God and the spiritual world, or if he thinks that these ideas are metaphors or ideological constructs (I think I am using that term correctly, but it would be a real strain for me to try to define it). Rohr seems to have a politically correct view…a tolerant or all inclusive way of saying things. I do believe there are many different religious paths. There are all types of forms which modify behavior, shape good people. I agree that we can all learn from different people in how to build our own Tower of Babel, meaning, on earth all these belief systems can morph into each other in our lifestyles, that religions really are not so different from each other.
I believe, however, in absolute truth. Absolute truth won’t change shape to fit my beliefs. Absolute truth does not depend on my life journey. My life journey depends on absolute truth, to adjust who I am to what is real, adjust who I am to the “I AM” (the name our Creator gave for himself when Moses asked who Moses should say sent him to Pharoah). So, I do not believe that all belief systems can actually be correct, that what happens after we die is different for each of us depending on what we believed about the after life. The afterlife is the afterlife, the way God made it to be, the way the Jewish writers explained it.
So I think of Ghandi. I believe it was he who said that he would have become a christian, except for his experience with other christians.
I bring up Ghandi because I do wonder if people get tired of hearing me talk about myself as was communicated in a comment in another blog. Sometimes, I believe, the only subject I have any authority to actually speak on is me. My experiences, my thoughts, my emotions. I love reading about this in other people’s lives, what they are going through. I get tired of hearing some ‘expert’, especially an ‘expert’ in theology speak on his education, other people’s theories that never become evident in lifestyles. (Which, on a tangent, makes me think of Paul, who wrote that aspiring to leadership in the church was a noble ambition. Just that when Paul was writing, church leaders did not drive fancy cars, have nice houses, comfortable lives, their faces on TV. Church leaders in Paul’s day faced execution by stones, whips, crosses, and I am sure that barely scratches the surface. Persecution!) So, I just try to be honest about what I am going through, and I am sorry if this is boring or stressful or offends your thought process. If my opinions or writing style are not to your liking, have mercy on me, my writing was developed in the weight room, and many of my opinions were developed over hours of “windshield time” on the highways of the east coast, and years of moving furniture. If you are looking for a fun read, something worth your money, I believe there are good people at Barnes and Nobles to help you out.
So, I think of Ghandi. (I bet Jesus and Ghandi have had some great conversations) In this book, Rohr quotes Ghandi, in the chapter which is titled “Your Life is Not About You” (I wonder who said it first, Rohr or Rick Warren), that “ONE’S LIFE IS ONE’S MESSAGE”. I totally agree.
Again,
“ONE’S LIFE IS ONE’S MESSAGE”, as spoken by Ghandi, as modeled for us by Jesus.
