Hard lessons of life...

Richard Rohr in his daily meditations explores what he calls seven Themes of an Alternative Orthodoxy, from what I understand it shapes his prolific writing. Currently he is exploring his sixth theme 'The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines'

Problem as I see it there are not many who want to respond to that faculty of teaching! Thinking back, the teachers that I seem to remember are those who knew how to push me, and actually were not all that cuddly!  Six weeks on Jeremiah has shown how to respond even in the darkest of times, to embrace life with all its complications, unexpected and unwanted turns.

Thinking out loud now, but I wonder if this embrace of life beyond what we want as an ideal creates space to explore life when it is not straight forward. The alternative is to nurture resentment and self-pity, which if it is life giving let's do more of it! Problem of course it isn't life giving in fact it steals from us, I wonder if that is Rohr's point regarding transformation?

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