URBANarmy

Rohr calls the Franciscan Tradition in which he was been formed is an “alternative orthodoxy” or heterodoxy.  "The early Franciscan friars and Poor Clares wanted to be Gospel practitioners instead of merely “word police,” “inspectors,” or “museum curators” as Pope Francis calls some clergy. Both Francis and Clare offered their rules as a forma vitae, or form of life. They saw orthopraxy (correct practice) as a necessary parallel, and maybe even precedent, to verbal orthodoxy (correct teaching)."

Interesting in the light of 1 John 4:12... "In the first instance, you have just experienced a religious high. Through prayer or some other religious or human experience, you have a strong, imaginative sense of God’s reality. At that particular moment, you feel sure of God’s existence and have an indubitable sense that God is real. Your faith feels strong. You could walk on water!  Then imagine different moment: You are lying in your bed, restless, agitated, feeling chaos around you, staring holes into the darkness, unable to imagine the existence of God, and unable to think of yourself as having faith. Try as you might, you cannot conjure up any feeling that God exists. You feel you are an atheist.  Does this mean that in one instance you have a strong faith and in the other you have a weak one? No. What it means is that in one instance you have a strong imagination and in the other you have a weak imagination. Faith in God is not to be confused with the capacity or inc...

At our low points, we are one step away from either enlightenment or despair. Without faith that there is a Bigger Pattern, and the grace to surrender to that Bigger Pattern, most people will move into despair, negativity, or cynicism. We need a promise, a hopeful direction, or it is very hard not to give up. When you have not yet learned what transformation feels or looks like, someone—perhaps some loving human or simply God’s own embrace—needs to hold you now because you cannot hold yourself. When we experience this radical holding, and even deep loving, this is salvation! Rohr