Richard Rohr

Richard's voice companioned me through the spring and summer. A few pages each morning gave me plenty to think about — the process often rearranging my ideas and nudging by beliefs in unexpected ways.

The chapter challenging and examining the long-time notion of necessary violence is worth the price of the book.

I'm still getting my head around a number of concepts, but even when I don't fully understand the perspective offered, I feel invited to sit with it and give it space for show more consideration. Ample hope for my heart as well as a workout for my mind.

I'll be re-reading this book, I'm sure. show less

Richard can talk to me anytime he likes. Usually we meet in the early hours before my day picks up steam. When I say we meet, I mean I hold his book in one hand and a pencil in the other as I underline sentences or star particular paragraphs that he clearly wrote just for me.

The only sorrow of picking up a book by Rohr is knowing that it will end and I'll be left on my own until I find/order/borrow another. Of some comfort: his ideas are so fresh that I know I will be struck once more with show more the warmth of the Love of which he speaks. The perspective and understanding shared will make me blink and catch my breath as he invites me, yet again, into contemplation and the Unified Field where everything belongs.

Confession: I still have a spiritual crush on this writer and must admit that I hope I may be transformed into a mystic as his words and teachings soak into my soul. show less

Richard Rohr always remains a compelling author and witness.

In The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (galley received as part of early review program), Rohr considers the prophets of Israel and the prophetic role for at least some today.

He very much is playing with words with “tears”: it can be read as the tears (which come from the eyes) of things, the crying, mourning, and lamenting which is deeply embedded within the prophetic tradition, but also as the tears show more (ripping) of things, since the prophets work to uncover and expose the secretive ways of how things work against most people to the benefit of a few.

He would explore Amos, Elijah, Jonah, John the Baptist, the Isaianic traditions, and Ezekiel in some depth. He also would speak regarding the remnant, the holy disorder the prophets provide and which paradoxically sustains the faith of believers, learning sympathy and grace from the prophets, and all to the goal of growing in love.

His portrayal of the prophets is often arresting and compelling, and even where one might disagree with him, one can at least see who he is, where he’s coming from, and what he’s about. I do not feel as comfortable as he does in seeing some prophets as “less developed” and others as “more developed” according to the standards he’s establishing, and generally warn against such kinds of presumption, for instance; but I can understand the logic he is using and why he would believe as much, even if I still think it a bit dangerous to stand in that position of judgment.

Rohr will always work to shake you from your complacency in interpretation and application, and he does it well here. Recommended for at least consideration in terms of the prophets and the prophetic tradition. show less

Interesting, short but very dense book. I feel as though I might have to re-read it to be sure I understood it. On a first reading, Falling Upward raises more questions than it answers. It's filled with assertions and name-dropping, but it's oddly lacking in specifics. For example, Fr. Rohr tells us that he now understands the story of Adam and Eve on "ten different levels" other than the literal (which he asserts is the lowest level of meaning), but he doesn't tell us what those levels are, show more or how the reader can reach them. Moreover, if mature people are supposed to move past binary thinking during the "second half of life", why are two important concepts in the book, "first half/second half" of life and "True-Self/False Self" presented as binaries? show less