Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Fifty-Two Summary and Practice

Summary: A Time of Unveiling

December 26 - December 31, 2021

Sunday
If we trust the universal pattern, the wisdom of all times and all places, including the creation and evolution of the cosmos itself, we know that an ending is also the place for a new beginning. Death promises a new kind of life. —Richard Rohr

Monday
The Gospel accepts the essentially tragic nature of human existence; it is willing to bear the contradictions that are imprinted on all of reality. It will always be the road less traveled. —Richard Rohr

Tuesday
Jesus came to teach us the way of wisdom. He brought us a message that offers to liberate us from both the lies of the world and the lies lodged in ourselves. 
—Richard Rohr

Wednesday
In my mind, church talk about an association of darkness with evil and goodness with light made no sense. I knew that darkness held and healed me. —Barbara Holmes

Thursday
We must now cherish life on earth and engage with it by focusing our best energies on learning to love neighbor, self, earth, and God, who is Love.
—Brian McLaren

Friday
God puts us in a world of passing things where everything changes and nothing remains the same. It helps us appreciate that everything is a gift. We didn’t create it. We don’t deserve it. It will not last, but while we breathe it in, we can enjoy it, and know that it is another moment of God, another moment of life.
—Richard Rohr

Breathe with Us

As the 2021 Daily Meditations draw to a close and we enter the new year, we invite you to pray with the CAC staff and community with the words used to open our seventh and final CONSPIRE conference this past September:

In a world of fault lines and fractures,
we stand in a place where opposites come together,
awaiting the birth of what is to come.

If you are doubting, welcome.
If you are healing, welcome.
If you are angry at injustice, welcome.

We await a new genesis,
one more beginning in a series of starts,
trailing backwards in time to the very first day.

If you are afraid, welcome.
If you are joyful, welcome.
If you are longing to belong, welcome.

God’s generous rhythm of life, death, resurrection,
moving in and through all things,
the very breath and source of the cosmos itself.

Our pathways converge and continue,
each one of us a catalyst for loving action.
We, a community of saints. 
Conspire.
Breathe with us.

Experience a version of this practice through video and sound.

“Me, Us, the World: Living Inside God’s Great Story,” CONSPIRE 2021 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2021), video.

Image credit: Nicholas Kramer, Untitled (detail), 2021, photograph, Seattle. Used with permission.

Image inspiration: Here, in these bare rose sepals, is the pattern of life: the budding of spring, the bloom of summer, the wilting of autumn, the barrenness of winter. In accepting this process, we unveil and make room for new life, new growth, new blooms.

Learn more about the Daily Meditations Editorial Team.

News from the CAC

Explore the Cosmic Egg in the new issue of ONEING

What do we learn when we embrace—rather than suppress—the stories that unfold through us and each other? In the new issue of ONEING, the biannual journal of the Center for Action and Contemplation, readers explore an inclusive framework for liberation from the stories that confine us. Order a copy of ONEING in print and downloadable PDF.

Self-Knowledge for the Spiritual Journey

Unlock the mystery of self-knowledge—a powerful tool for spiritual development and contemplative practice, including works with key themes of the Enneagram and nonduality from CAC friends and faculty. Check out this specially-curated collection in our online bookstore.

Explore Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations archive at cac.org. 

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