A mystic doesnâ€™t say â€œI believe.â€ They say â€œI know.â€ A true mystic will ironically speak with that self-confidence but at the same time with a kind of humility. So when you see that combination of calm self-confidence, certitude, and humility all at the same time you have the basis for mysticism in general.

Richard Rohr

One time, a Protestant minister said, "We made Jesus blonde haired and blue eyed and very cute. We made Jesus somehow a much more feminine figure." And there's probably truth to that.

Richard Rohr

blue cute jesus

I think it's almost necessary for most people to have the freedom to pull back, and then re-enter at an adult level, where they are neither playing the victim nor creating victims, but just participating in calm, adult behavior. Because an awful lot of churches just aren't there at adult Christianity, this seems to be the norm anymore.

Richard Rohr

creating people thinking

There is Someone dancing with you, and you are not afraid of making mistakes.

Richard Rohr

making-mistakes dancing mistake

I think most human beings are dualistic thinkers. It gets them through the day. It gives them a sense of superiority and security - that's what the ego wants.

Richard Rohr

ego giving thinking

Denial of our pattern of failure seems to be a kind of practical atheism or chosen ignorance among many believers and clergy.

Richard Rohr

atheism ignorance atheist

People who think they can just do a non-stop flight to mystical, non-dual thinking, to get it out without going through the process, are usually not right. That's airy-fairy thinking. They have to wait until they are hurt themselves, or they are cheated, or lied to or betrayed, and they will see that their non-dual thinking is not tested, or truly a gift of the spirit. It's simply fuzzy thinking.

Richard Rohr

gifts-of-the-spirit hurt thinking

Men and women are most alike at their most mature and soulful levels. Men and women are most different only at their most immature and merely physical levels.

Richard Rohr

immature different men

You have to find some way to not become a cynical or negative person, a person who keeps walking around and opening your eyes in the outside world but inside you close down, a person who stops expecting tomorrow to be better than today.

Richard Rohr

cynical eye negative

You do need some successes as a young person. They don't inflate the ego necessarily, they just give you identity and ego structure. But, don't construct your life around creating those. Or you will become narcissistic and ego-centric. That won't get you anywhere.

Richard Rohr

creating ego giving

I decided years ago that if I'm going to keep teaching contemplation, then the last years of my life should be contemplative.

Richard Rohr

lasts teaching years

It is only through the holes in our soul that we break out and God breaks through.

Richard Rohr

break-through break-out soul

Religious belief has made me comfortable with ambiguity.

Richard Rohr

belief religious made

God seems to be about turning our loves around and using them toward the great love that is their true object.

Richard Rohr

our-love great-love objects

When I choose the title [for my book], which was my favorite title, I felt sure there was going to be a dozen books maybe with that name already because it's so obvious to me that that's the message. I was surprised it hasn't been the title of a single book. Well, there is a Shel Silverstein children's book called Falling Upwards. But no one has chosen Falling Upward as a title and I'm very happy it's right on the cover.

Richard Rohr

book children fall

People wanted to me to describe more about what I call "the container," and then describe what the second half of life feels like.

Richard Rohr

half feels people

The message of "falling" - failure, death, crucifixion, whatever you want to say - is not really that. Some sort of falling is really found in all the world's religions, just in different languages.

Richard Rohr

messages want fall

In the last years, I've been reading the Eastern fathers, the older mystical writings, a rich, deep, and truly traditional Christianity which most Western Christians know almost nothing about. It is very mystical and prayer centered Christianity, with a strong social conscience.

Richard Rohr

strong prayer christian

When you do the first half of life well, you have a good sense of yourself. Most of our mainline Christian denominations, in my opinion, don't do the first or second halves very well. We don't really give people a good container, we give them a bunch of legalisms.

Richard Rohr

christian giving people

We don't have much wisdom about the second half when things really open up and end up looking a lot more progressive. In my own Catholic church, for example, we're sort of circling the wagons today by thinking that more moral strictures, more exclusionary rules on this or that, that that's going to do for the first half of life. I don't think it really does.

Richard Rohr

catholic church thinking

We are usually on bended knee before laws or angrily reacting against them, both immature responses.

Richard Rohr

knees immature law