Dear Friend,
Recently, I’ve found myself returning to one truth I’ve learned through a lifetime of ministry, contemplation, and shadow work:
We cannot think our way into transformation. We must live ourselves into it — often weeping our way through it.
Anger against the tragic absurdity of life is deserved and necessary, but if we do not transform our anger, we will transmit it. I’ve come to believe that tears hold the key to our deeper transformation. Tears are the sign of a soul beginning to surrender to love.
I’ve seen this happen in so many lives: Women exhausted by holding the world together who finally give themselves permission to weep. Men on retreat who discover a profound sadness underneath their anger. Healers who let grief lead them to care instead of burnout. And in Daily Meditations readers like Kecia, who shared her story with us:
I grew up in an authoritative, spiritually abusive household and spent my childhood terrified of God. By reading the Daily Meditations, CAC has brought Christianity back into my life. I saw the humanity of Jesus for the first time and the deep understanding that I’m not separate or alone.
That’s the kind of transformation we hope to make space for each day through these Daily Meditations.
Together, we are discovering the transforming wisdom of a divine love spacious enough to hold our tears. The Center for Action and Contemplation is funded by people like you who give freely and joyfully to support it. We are deeply grateful for each and every one of you.
Twice per year, we pause and ask for your financial support. If the CAC’s work has been meaningful to you, including these Daily Meditations, please consider making a gift. Every gift, no matter the amount, helps this movement of love, justice, and inner freedom continue to grow.
Please read the letter below from CAC’s Executive Director Michael Poffenberger about how you can support the conditions that make transformation possible. Tomorrow, the Daily Meditations will continue exploring the theme of “Sacramental Reality.”
Thank you for taking this journey with us and for allowing us to be part of your life, your mornings, your tears, and your transformation.
Peace and Every Good,
Fr. Richard Rohr
Founder, Center for Action and Contemplation
Richard Rohr with CAC’s Daily Meditations Team, Mark Longhurst (left) and Ali Kirkpatrick (right).
Dear Friend,
One of the most important things I’ve learned from Fr. Richard is this: If it’s something we can control, it’s not God. It is often in the very places beyond our control — the experiences of loss, limitation, and heartbreak — that we become transformed by grace.
Much of our effort goes into building our identities and plans, but these are often reflections of our own personalities and attachments. Encounters with God begin not in our striving, but in our willingness to let go of our false selves.
Transformation, then, is not something we achieve. It is something that happens to us when we witness ourselves with honesty in prayer and then are healed by God.
James Finley, CAC core faculty member, often talks about the paradox of will and grace in the process of transformation. He says that transformation happens when we put ourselves “in the position of least resistance to being overtaken by grace.”
At the Center for Action and Contemplation, our goal is to create the conditions where inner and outer transformation are possible. Through our teachings and programs, we seek to carry Fr. Richard’s vision forward by sharing the wisdom of Christian contemplative traditions in a way that nurtures a deep, sustained openness to God’s loving presence. From this place of inner receptivity, transformation begins to flow outward as compassionate action in the world.
If you are able to make a more lasting impact, please consider becoming a recurring supporter through the Bonaventure Circle of Support, the CAC’s monthly giving community. Support from this community provides the CAC with consistent and predictable funding needed to expand our programs, offer scholarships, diversify our faculty, and share this wisdom — needed now in the world more than ever — with a new generation of spiritual seekers.
We thank you for your partnership, presence, and trust as we journey this contemplative path together.
In loving gratitude,
Michael Poffenberger
Executive Director
Center for Action and Contemplation
You can donate securely online at cac.org/dm-appeal or send a check (USD only) to CAC, P.O. Box 12464, Albuquerque, NM 87195. Donations are tax-deductible in the United States. EIN # 85-0354965. We invite donations of any size. Learn more about other ways to give, including gifts of stock, qualified distributions from your IRA, gifts from a Donor-Advised Fund or a gift in your will at cac.org/support. Contact us if you have any questions or want to discuss making a transformational gift. Thank you for your ongoing support!
