Falling Upward

After spending a week on a coral reef my equilibrium is still shifting with the waves. Regularity, certainty, normality? Or mystery, subtlety, inscrutability? Which triptych describes my day-to-day? As a creature of habit I often prefer ‘routineness,’ but it seems to me that Jesus often chooses the enigmatic path.

The paradoxical words of Scripture include Jesus’s manifesto: ‘In losing one’s life one will find it’ (MT 10:39) and the Apostle Paul’s cryptic cry, ‘When I am weak, then I am strong’ (2 Cor 12:10). Both pronouncements underline the truth that fullness of life flows to the degree that we become empty. Richard Rohr alludes to this truth in his excellent book, Falling Upward:

There is a necessary suffering that cannot be avoided, which Jesus calls “losing our very life,” or losing what I and others call the “false self.” Your false self is your role, title, and personal image that is largely a creation of your own mind and attachments. It will and must die in exact correlation to how much you want the Real.” (Richard Rohr)

Big thoughts for a Monday. What do you think?