Richard Rohr describes his own life’s journey from Order, through Disorder, to Reorder:
Beyond rational and critical thinking, we need to be called again. To use Paul Ricœur’s phrasing, this can lead to the discovery of a “second naïveté,” which is a return to the joy of our “first naïveté” (original belief or understanding), but now with totally new, inclusive, and mature thinking. Ricœur’s language helps me understand what happened on my own spiritual and intellectual journey. I began as a very conservative, pious, and law-abiding pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic, living in 1940s and 1950s Kansas, buffered and bounded by my parents’ stable marriage and many lovely liturgical traditions that sanctified my time and space. This was my first wonderful simplicity or period of Order. I was a very happy child and young man, and all who knew me then would agree.
Yet, I grew in my experience and was gradually educated in a much larger world of the 1960s and 1970s, with degrees in philosophy and theology, and a broad liberal arts education given to me by the Franciscans. That education was the second journey into rational complexity and critical thinking. I had to leave the garden, just as Adam and Eve had to do (Genesis 3:23–24)—even though my new Scripture awareness made it obvious that Adam and Eve were probably not historical figures, but important archetypal symbols. I was heady with knowledge and “enlightenment,” but definitely not at peace. It is sad and disconcerting for a while outside the garden, and some lovely innocence dies in this time of Disorder. Many will not go there, precisely because it is a loss of seeming “innocence”—things learned at our “mother’s knee,” as it were.
Father Richard describes his experience of Reorder:
As time passed, I became simultaneously very traditional and very progressive, and I have probably continued to be so to this day. I found a much larger and even happier garden (note the new garden described at the end of the Bible in Revelation 22:1–2). I fully believe in Adam and Eve now, but on about ten more levels. (Literalism is usually the lowest and least level of meaning.) I no longer fit in with either staunch liberals or strict conservatives. This was my first strong introduction to paradox, and it honed my ability to hold two seemingly opposite positions at the same time. It took most of midlife to figure out what had happened—and how and why it had to happen.
This “pilgrim’s progress” was, for me, sequential, natural, and organic as the circles widened; as I taught in more and more countries, I was always being moved toward greater differentiation and larger viewpoints, and simultaneously toward a greater inclusivity in my ideas, a deeper understanding of people, and a more honest sense of justice. God always became bigger and led me to bigger places where everything could finally belong.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, rev. ed. (Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass, 2024), 67–68.
Image credit and inspiration: Jenna Keiper, cracked stained glass (detail), 2020, photo, Albuquerque. Click here to enlarge image. Like this cracked stained glass, sometimes we have to let the old structures deconstruct in order to make room for the new.
Story from Our Community:
I went on my own journey of Order, Disorder, and Reorder. I had attained my dream job as a professor at my alma mater. However, in the fifth year, I was drawn away from the university to enter the path of priesthood, which eventually brought me to the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley. Then, everything fell apart, and I couldn’t be ordained. Now, I use what I learned to shape my faith, and I even apply that to my work in consulting and teaching. CAC and Fr. Rohr helped me sustain this more complex and affirming way of understanding of my path and maintaining an openness to the Spirit.
—Patrick S.
