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The Wisdom of Mentors
The Wisdom of Mentors

The Wisdom of Mentors: Weekly Summary 

Saturday, August 24, 2024

Sunday 
A wise mentor leads someone to their own center and to the Center, but by circuitous paths, using their two steps backward to lead them three steps forward. It may look unproductive, but it is really the wisdom path of God.  
—Richard Rohr  

Monday 
Even if we aren’t in a formal mentoring relationship with others, if we keep maturing, if we use all we have experienced for our own soul work, then I think we’re already giving something to the next generation.  
—Richard Rohr 

Tuesday 
Spiritual guides are vital beacons of light on the spiritual path, and once a person becomes spiritually mature, they naturally begin to serve as spiritual mentors for others. 
—Lerita Coleman Brown 

Wednesday 
We’re either going to flock and circle with older generations that are trying to hold on to what they have and defend what they’ve done, or if we’re going to join with younger generations and with their desire to take these issues seriously because their entire future is going to unfold in a climate-changed world.
—Brian McLaren 

Thursday 
If we remain self-assured, self-righteous, self-seeking, dualistic thinkers, we cannot become bridge builders or agents of reconciliation—not even in our own families or neighborhoods.  
—Richard Rohr  

Friday 
My culture does not honor the ancestors as a quaint spirituality of the past, but as a living source of strength for the present. They did it and so will we. 
—Steven Charleston 

Week Thirty-Four Practice 
Saying Yes to Life 

Writer-activist Lydia Wylie-Kellermann considers how children offer us an opportunity to both give and receive wisdom necessary for life to flourish: 

We all find the life that calls to our bones. Perhaps we nourish life by putting pen to paper or hands in the dirt. Perhaps we help those who are dying to walk with joy, or a classroom of kids to sing a little louder, or by feeding the birds. Perhaps we have claimed the title of aunt, uncle, godparent, neighbor, or friend to a beloved child. All of it is necessary.  

Having kids has been one way for me to pour out my love in celebration of life. It has not made the grief lighter … perhaps it has deepened it. But it has also expanded my hope, my joy, my longings, and my insistence on what is possible in this moment. Community and imagination are powerful forces and gosh do these kids know how to call upon it. Don’t look away from death, but in its midst, choose life. Choose life. Choose life. 

Wylie-Kellermann offers these words of wisdom

Dear friends, 
ask the hard questions. 
Give thanks for uncertainty. 
Trust yourself. 
Lean into the wisdom of community.  
Don’t take yourself too seriously.  
Know that the arc is long. 
Lean on the ancestors. 
Ask the creatures for advice. 
Follow the wind. 
Know that there is no right way.  
Trust others on their path. 
Find yours. 
Embrace the mess. 
Give your life to a 
holy, undeniable “Yes!” 
Whatever that yes may be. 
And know, that this “had to happen.”  
How lucky we are to be alive!  

Reference:  
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann, This Sweet Earth: Walking with Our Children in the Age of Climate Collapse (Minneapolis, MN: Broadleaf Books, 2024), 17–18, 19.  

Image credit and inspiration: Jenna Keiper, a walk in the fog with Richard, Kirsten, and Patrick (detail), 2019, photo, Albuquerque. Click here to enlarge image. Patrick Boland, Kirsten Oates, and Richard Rohr walk together—students and teacher—navigating a pathway on a cold, foggy morning.

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