CONSPIRE Teacher Talks #1
God’s Great Story
Me / Us / The World — the theme of the final CONSPIRE conference—invites us to explore the individual and collective stories woven in the fabric of God’s Great Story. As we prepare to spend this sacred time together in September, we invite you to explore this storyline with us!
In addition to conference details, we are going to send you seven emails with the subject line CONSPIRE Teacher Talks. Follow the thread as it weaves through Richard Rohr’s seven themes of the Alternative Orthodoxy in an exploration of the Great Story Line that connects us all in the One Great Life.
Each email will include videos and other materials from our six CONSPIRE conference presenters, as well as opportunities to explore rituals, create inner space, and connect with each other.
Without the great stories that free us, we remain trapped in small cultural and private worlds. True transcendence frees us from the tyranny of I Am and the idolatry of We Are.
—RICHARD ROHR
The Great Story Line: Death Transformed, Not Death Avoided
It’s hard to let go and surrender to the universal spiritual pattern, which includes our very own birth and death. That’s why the Alternative Orthodoxy’s view of Jesus’s death and resurrection is so profound—it’s not a blood payment for our sins. Fr. Richard Rohr explains that rather than focusing on sin, Jesus—“the crucified One”— points us toward God in solidarity with the suffering of all creation.
In this clip from Easter 2020, Fr. Richard reflects on God’s invitation to walk through our personal stories and group stories so that we can learn to trust the pattern of reality.
As Fr. Richard shares in the final episode of his podcast Another Name for Every Thing, when we follow the threads of God’s Great Story, we discover a universal pattern that has been true since the beginning of time: Life is love unfolding, death is not the end, and resurrection is God’s promise of continued renewal.
Living Into a New Way of Thinking
Fr. Richard says we cannot think ourselves into a new way of living; rather, we must live ourselves into a new way of thinking.
When he was a Franciscan novitiate in Cincinnati, Ohio, Fr. Richard experienced a powerful encounter with this Reality: “Suddenly I knew that God’s love did not depend on following laws or being worthy. I knew I wasn’t worthy, and yet here I was experiencing absolute grace and absolute acceptance. I’d been taken to another world, which was really this world as it truly is. I’d realized, ‘My God, this is what everybody is living inside of, and they don’t see it!’”
In this clip from the 2019 Universal Christ conference, Fr. Richard invites us to deepen our experience of Christ-soaked presence in the world.
A Christ-soaked world means that Presence permeates all aspects of reality, seen and unseen. Fr Richard says, “The Great Story Line invites us to see the meaning and purpose in this collective mystery.” In fact, God does more than ask us to see—God encourages us to participate!
Practicing Presence
Please join us in a simple practice of noticing how God graces our lives with God’s presence.
Take a moment to look back over your life and notice a moment when you knew in some way you were connected into the presence of God.
Close your eyes and take a moment to return to the memory of that experience.
What do you see?
What do you feel?
What is open in you?
After reflecting on the experience in your mind and heart, create a drawing or write down some words that express some of what you experienced.
We look forward to joining you at the final CONSPIRE, where our practices will reach into the underlying closeness, tapping into this reality of oneness with God and all beings.