Half-time...

You had to do

the wanting

and the trying

and the achieving

and the self-promoting

and the accomplishing.

The first half of life is all about some kind of

performance principle.

And it seems that it must be this way.

You have to do it wrong before you know what right might be.

These deeper voices will sound like

risk,

trust,

surrender,

uncommon sense,

destiny,

love.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We must go through the pain of disorder

to grow up and switch our loyalties from self to God.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As we grow in wisdom, we realize
that everything belongs and everything can be received.

We see that life and death are not opposites.
They do not cancel one another out;
neither do goodness and badness.

There is now room for everything to belong.
A radical, almost nonsensical “okayness” characterizes
the mature believer,
which is why we are often called “holy fools.”

We don’t have to deny, dismiss, defy, or ignore reality anymore.
What is, is gradually okay.
What is, is the greatest of teachers.

At the bottom of all reality is always a deep goodness,
or what Merton called “a hidden wholeness.”


~R. Rohr