The Eight Core Principles

The Prophetic Principles That Provide

the Foundation for the Teachings of Richard Rohr,

the Work of the Rohr Institute,

and the Living School for Action and Contemplation

Richard Rohr

Franciscan Media

Cincinnati, Ohio

Copyright

Scripture passages are the author’s own translation. All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2013, Richard Rohr. All rights reserved.

E-BOOK ISBN 978-1-61636-684-1

Published by Franciscan Media

28 W. Liberty St.

Cincinnati, OH 45202

www.FranciscanMedia.org

Contents

The Eight Core Principles

Foreword

Standing With Jesus

Contemplation and Compassion

Zealots and Pharisees

On the Edge of the Inside

If It Is True, Then It Has to Be True Everywhere

Questions Versus Answers

True Self, False Self

Orthopraxy Leads to Real Orthodoxy

The Eight Core Principles

1. The teaching of Jesus is our central reference point.

2. We need a contemplative mind in order to do compassionate action.

3. The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. Oppositional energy only creates more of the same.

4. Practical truth is more likely found at the bottom and the edges than at the top or the center of most groups, institutions, and cultures.

5. We will support true authority, the ability to “author” life in others, regardless of the group.

6. Life is about discovering the right questions more than having the right answers.

7. True religion leads us to an experience of our True Self and undermines my false self.

8. We do not think ourselves into a new way of living, but we live ourselves into a new way of thinking.

Foreword

Several years ago, when I was still a practicing psychotherapist in Boston, Massachusetts, a new client was struggling to come to terms with a terminal illness. At the same time, a childhood wound that had been successfully buried beneath years of achievement and striving could no longer be contained. The intensity of these feelings surfaced like a fast-rising storm. After a period of silence, he looked at me and asked what possible advantage there was to discussing these difficulties: “I can do this on my own. I don’t need you, or anyone.”

Having met my own darkness in a similar crucible of pain, I understood his anger and resistance. For a few minutes we listened to the sound of the clock ticking on the wall. I finally told him that nothing required him to speak with someone else in order to navigate this journey. But, I added, it had long been my experience that, if you are climbing a mountain, it helps to have a guide—someone for whom the path is well known, and the particular twists and turns of the trail are familiar.

Richard Rohr’s penetrating and challenging writings are such a guide; they serve as a Sherpa for the inner pilgrimage, and have done so for millions. Rohr never flinches from offering the most direct affronts to our comfortable beliefs. The Eight Core Principles is the culmination of years of commitment to a journey that strips us before it illumines us. When you read his words, you read not only his scholarship and study of Scripture; you also read the hours spent in his hermitage, the battles and the lonely times—the very struggles we experience ourselves. Then you are given access to his dedication, over and over again, to the Franciscan path and the invitation of the Divine to the human soul. In his own words, “If I’m going to continue to address groups as if I have something to say…then my life has to be more experiential and intimate…. I cannot risk losing touch with both my angels and my demons.” That sentiment might be its own core principle. It is surely a core teaching. Left to our own wits, he tells us, we will always stumble: “Only the True Self can live the gospel.”

Follow Rohr through these pages and he will take you to the “edge of things…to liminal space.” These principles are not a treatise, nor are they intended to be a how-to or one more thing to believe. He is a doorkeeper, and the words that follow are intended to help you cross a threshold. They will beckon you (and at times push you) to exceed your treasured points of view. They will invite you to a much larger awareness. Rohr wisely notes that “the genuinely new or different is always a threat.” He offers insight in a straightforward manner and without apology: “When you say you love God, you are saying you love everything.” It would probably make sense to stop and sit with that single declaration until its meaning penetrates your every fiber.

A revered Native American elder used to tell those who sought her wise teachings that, “Few people know how to appreciate their world, and what it can teach them. They throw away knowledge minute by minute…. Responsibility begins each morning upon awakening” (Estcheemah, from Lightning Bolt, by Hyemeyohsts Storm).

By sipping these principles slowly, each morning, you may awaken to the knowledge that the Divine seed is waiting deep within your cells, and within the cells of all that lives. You might set an intention to climb the mountain before you with a guide who will not tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know in order to bring your experience in life closer to the fullness that is meant to be yours.

Paula D’Arcy

Austin, TX

1st Core Principle

The teaching of Jesus is our central reference point.

Standing with Jesus

Our first principle and criterion is that “The teaching of Jesus is our central reference point.” He is our guide in how we stand with culture, how we stand against culture, and how we stand in service of culture.

For those of you who have been our readers for any length of time, I hope our principles are already obvious. But let me say why we wanted to put Jesus first and foremost. We, like all who are trying to act with integrity, know that we need a North Star, a final authority, a clearinghouse, a guiding teacher who orients and critiques all the rest. That “one God before us,” as the Hebrew Scriptures advise, is clearly Jesus of Nazareth. If Another is not our reference point, we are burdened with being our own, which makes for a very small and self-referential system of thought and vision.

Without the assurance of Jesus’ teaching and example, I would not have the courage or the confidence to say what I say. How can I trust that things like non-violence, the path of descent, simplicity of life, forgiveness and healing, the preference for the poor, and radical grace itself are as important as they are, unless Jesus also said so? This discernment is made even harder, however, by the fact that the actual Jesus agenda does not tend to be the same agenda that is emphasized in the Christian churches. Without Jesus, I would have no authoritative place to stand either in reference to church or culture, and I would be left with merely culturally shifting opinions and my own small mind and heart.

This has also been true for the twenty-five year history of the CAC. With the best of intentions, and from the very first meeting in 1987, good people have pushed for other central reference points than Jesus. Most of them have been very good, but they are just not the same as the holism and authority that Jesus brings to most questions. Native American spirituality, feminist spirituality, peace and justice activism, Catholicism, the gay and lesbian issues, critical politics, eco-spirituality and earth care, running our own local hospice or soup kitchen, could all have become our single guiding star, but they did not. All of these concerns surely share in, or at least follow from, the teaching of Jesus. But they also have the ability to become myopic. Jesus does not have “eyes closed to everything else” (myopic) but, in fact, Jesus teaches us to look at all of these issues with “a third eye” which he calls the “Reign of God” and I call the “Big Picture.” That is very different, indeed much more difficult, and today not so popular — with either the Right or the Left. It is clearly our task, and we hold ourselves to it. Jesus teaches us more how to see than precisely what to see.

Now let me share how Jesus is our precise way of connecting to culture, because again I think he is unique, authoritative, and compelling. First of all, he combines humanity and divinity in one act. Human and Divine can be one. That is his great service to human history, and reveals to us our own task, too.

His social stance, however, is often hard to explain, precisely because it is a third way, not easily seen by our normal dualistic mind. Jesus does not stand against culture, which appeals to the oppositional mind, nor does he stand in conformity to culture, which appeals to the uncritical mind, but instead he does something quite astounding. He consistently stands with the excluded, the outsider, the sinner, and the poor. That is his place of freedom from every local culture, his unique way of critiquing all self-serving culture, and his way of standing in union with the suffering of the world — all at the same time. That is his form of world healing. It also puts him outside any status quo thinking and any establishment thinking.

Brilliantly, Jesus names “sin” in a totally new way, which most Christians are still largely resisting. Sin, for Jesus, is not found in any kind of localization of evil outside or over there, where I can point to it, punish it, and try to change it. That is too easy, and thus it is religion’s constant temptation. Without denying sin or making light of evil, he shows us the one way of actually overcoming it. Sin, for Jesus, is the very act of accusing itself — whenever you try to expel and accuse evil groups, nations, religions, or people, and somehow leave yourself out of the equation, you end up “sinning.” It is rather shocking that Jesus is never actually upset at sinners, as we are, but he is only upset at people who do not think they are sinners. That is very different than almost all organized religion in history.

“Accusers” in various forms are the only people that Jesus himself accuses. (In fact, Satan means “the accuser” and is rightly seen as the opposite of Jesus.) Jesus would never deny objective evil, but he knows that any human attempts to conquer it, or control it, can only be done according to the pattern of the crucifixion itself. There he teaches us how to hold it, carry it ourselves, and finally transform it — by recognizing our own complicity in evil but our eagerness to attack it elsewhere (see Romans 8:3, Galatians 3:13). Until this dualistic illusion is suffered, we are never prepared to attack evil ourselves, which is revealed in Jesus’ first facing the three temptations to power himself (Matthew 4:1–11) before he begins his ministry. Until we face our own power demons, none of us are prepared to fight evil. That is the humiliating position of Jesus where few choose to stand.

It is rather obvious that Jesus spends most of his ministry standing with the accused, the excluded, the unworthy, the so-called bad people, the demonized. It is actually rather scandalous how the only way he tries to change them is by loving and healing them, never accusing anybody but the accusers themselves. His social program is primarily solidarity. Jesus stands with the demonized until the demonizing stops. This is Jesus’ primary form of justice work, which is why Jesus’ “strategy” is always so hard to pinpoint and name. His justice strategy is solidarity with suffering itself, wherever it is. This is the core meaning of his crucifixion, and why the cross is our very unique agenda for salvation and liberation (1 Corinthians 1:17–18) — even more than working or fighting for justice per se, which disappoints many activists. Even justice work, as needed as it is, can be an ego and power agenda.

Mary is doing the same, by the way, by standing at the foot of the cross. He and she stand with the pain, to call us all to lives of communion with the world’s suffering. This is so much harder than merely trying to fix it, understand it, control it, or even localize it. Only love can do this, and really only God’s love.

I am sure you see how Jesus’ agenda has led us to our central emphasis on contemplation and spiritual conversion, here at the CAC and in the Living School, over pure and simple activism. Our work is the work of human and divine transformation (theosis), not the too-easy work of political or religious correctness. If the universal kinship, the solidarity, the communion with God, with ourselves, with the rest of the world, is daily experienced and lived, we do have a very grounded plan and runway for significant peacemaking, justice work, social reform, civil and human rights — but now from a very positive place, even a unitive place, where “I and the Father are one.” We want our people to bear much fruit in the world, “and fruit that will endure” (John 15:5, 16).

True spiritual action (as opposed to reaction) demands our own ongoing transformation, often changing sides to be where the pain is, and even requires a new identity, as Jesus exemplified in his great self-emptying (Philippians 2:6–7). Instead of accusing others of sin on the Left or the Right, Jesus instead “became sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). He stood in solidarity with the problem itself, hardly ever with specific “answers” for peoples’ problems. His solidarity and compassion was itself the healing. This was his strategy and therefore it is ours. It feels like weakness, but it finally changes things in very creative, patient, and humble ways. Such solidarity is learned and expressed in two special places — contemplation (non dual or unitive consciousness of things) and specific actions of communion with human suffering.

This is our formal name and our task, and it comes from watching Jesus.

2nd Core Principle

We need a contemplative mind in order to do compassionate action.

Contemplation and Compassion

The Second Gaze

Contemplation happens to everyone. It happens in moments when we are open, undefended, and immediately present.

— Dr. Gerald May

I am just like you. My immediate response to most situations is with reactions of attachment, defensiveness, judgment, control, and analysis. I am better at calculating than contemplating. Let’s admit that we all start there. The false self seems to have the “first gaze” at almost everything.

On my better days, when I am “open, undefended, and immediately present,” I can sometimes begin with a contemplative mind and heart. Often I can get there later and even end there, but it is usually a second gaze. The True Self seems to always be ridden and blinded by the defensive needs of the false self. It is an hour-by-hour battle, at least for me. I can see why all spiritual traditions insist on daily prayer, in fact, morning, midday, evening, and before we go to bed, too! Otherwise, I can assume that I am back in the cruise control of small and personal self-interest, the pitiable and fragile “richard” self.

The first gaze is seldom compassionate. It is too busy weighing and feeling itself: “How will this affect me?” or “How does my self image demand that I react to this?” or “How can I get back in control of this situation?” This leads us to an implosion, a self pre-occupation that cannot enter into communion with the other or the moment. In other words, we first feel our feelings before we can relate to the situation and emotion of the other. Only after God has taught us how to live “undefended” can we immediately stand with and for the other, and for the moment. It takes lots of practice. Maybe that is why many people even speak of their “spiritual practice”?

My practice is probably somewhat unique because of the nature of my life. I have no wife, family, or even constant community. My Franciscan tradition and superiors have allowed me in these later years to live alone, in a little “hermitage” that I call “East of Eden” behind the friary and parish. I am able to protect long hours of silence and solitude each day (when I am home), which I fill with specific times of prayer, study, journaling and writing, spiritual reading, gardening, walking, and just gazing. It is a luxury that most of you do not have.

On a practical level, my time home is two extremes: both very busy (visitors and calls, counselees, work at the CAC, mail, writing, and some work at Holy Family parish) yet, on the opposite side, very quiet and alone. I avoid most social gatherings, frankly because I know my soul has other questions to ask and answer as I get older. (Thank God, my Franciscan community has honored this need.) Small talk and “busyness about many things” will not get me there. If I am going to continue to address groups as if I have something to say, then I have to really know what I know, really believe what I believe, and my life has to be more experiential and intimate rather than mere repetition of formulas and doctrines. I am waiting, practicing, and asking for the second gaze.

I suppose this protected interiority was the historic meaning of cloister, vows of silence, silence in church, and guarded places and times inside of monasteries, where you were relieved of all the usual social pleasantries and obligations. Some people had to be free to move beyond ego consciousness to deeper contact with the unconscious, the shadow self, the intimate journey of the soul, toward conscious union with God. Traditionally, one was never allowed to live as a “hermit” until later in life, and only after you had paid your dues to community and concrete relationships. Only community and marriage force you to face, own, and exorcise your own demons. Otherwise, the loner is just a misanthrope or a sociopath, a person with poor social skills, or a person who desires to have total control of their day and time. This is not holiness. Avoiding people does not compute into love of God; being quiet and alone does not make you into a contemplative. Introversion and shyness are not the same as inner peace or communion. “Still waters run deep,” they say, but that water can be either very clear or quite toxic.

Your practice must somehow include the problem. Prayer is not the avoiding of distractions, but precisely how you deal with distractions. Contemplation is not the avoidance of the problem, but a daily merging with the problem, and finding its full resolution. What you quickly and humbly learn in contemplation, is that how you do anything is probably how you do everything. If you are brutal in your inner reaction to your own littleness and sinfulness, your social relationships and even your politics will probably be the same — brutal. One sees a woman overcome this split in St. Therese of Lisieux’s autobiography, Story of a Soul. This young contemplative nun is daily dealing with her irritations, judgments, and desire to run from other sisters in the convent. She faces her own mixed motives and pettiness. She is constant in her concern for those working actively in the missions, and her goal is always compassion and communion. Yet she suffers her own powerlessness to be compassionate until she can finally break through to love. She holds the tension within herself (the essence of contemplation) until she herself is the positive resolution of that tension. Therese always gets to the second gaze.

It has taken me much of my life to begin to get to the second gaze. By nature I have a critical mind and a demanding heart, and I am so impatient. These are both my gifts and my curses, as you might expect. Yet I cannot have one without the other, it seems. I cannot risk losing touch with either my angels or my demons. They are both good teachers. A life of solitude and silence allows them both, and invariably leads me to the second gaze. The gaze of compassion, looking out at life from the place of Divine Intimacy, is really all I have, and all I have to give, even though I don’t always do it.

I named my little hermitage East of Eden for some very specific reasons, however, not because of John Steinbeck’s marvelous novel (and movie) of the same name. On a humorous level, it was because I moved here thirteen years ago, 300 yards “east” of Holy Family Friary where I had previously lived. We had a fine community while I was there, consisting of three priests, two brothers, and many visitors who genuinely enjoyed one another — most of the time, anyway! All my needs and desires were met in very good ways. It was a sort of “Eden.”

But I also picked the name because of its significance in the life of Cain, after he had killed his brother, Abel. It was a place where God sent Cain, this bad boy, after he had failed and sinned, yet ironically with a loving and protective mark: “So Yahweh put a mark on Cain so that no one would do him harm. He sent him to wander in the land of Nod, East of Eden” (Genesis 4:15–16).

By my late 50’s I had had plenty of opportunities to see my own failures, shadow, and sin. The first gaze at myself was critical, negative, and demanding, not helpful at all, to me or to others. I am convinced that such guilt and shame are never from God. They are merely the protestations of the false self as it is shocked at its own poverty — the defenses of a little man who wants to be a big man. God leads by compassion toward the soul, never by condemnation. If God would relate to us by severity and punitiveness, God would only be giving us permission to do the same (which is tragically, exactly what has happened!). God offers us, instead, the grace to “weep” over our sins more than to ever perfectly overcome them, to humbly recognize our littleness rather than become big. It is the way of Cain, Francis, and Therese of Lisieux, who called it her “little way.” It is a kind of weeping and a kind of wandering that keeps us both askew and awake at the same time.

So now my later life call is to “wander in the land of Nod,” enjoying God’s so-often-proven love and protection, and look back at my life, and everybody’s life, the One-And-Only-Life, marked happily and gratefully with the sign of Cain. Contemplation and compassion are finally coming together. This is my second gaze. It is well worth waiting for, because only the second gaze sees fully and truthfully. It sees itself, the other, and even God with God’s own eyes, which are always eyes of compassion. It is from this place that true action must spring. Otherwise, most of our action is merely re-action, and does not bear fruit, and “fruit that will last” (John 15:16). It is all about me at that point, so I must hold out for the second gaze, when it becomes all about God, about others, and is filled with compassion for our suffering world. This alone deserves to be called Christian activity, and is far beyond the mere political or doctrinal correctness of either the Right or the Left.

3rd Core Principle

The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. Oppositional energy only creates more of the same.

Zealots and Pharisees

There seem to be two common avoidances of conversion or transformation, two typical diversionary tactics that we humans use to avoid holding the pain: fight or flight.

The way of fight is what I’ll call the way of Simon the zealot — and often the way of the cultural liberal. These folks want to change, fix, control, and reform other people and events. The zealot is always looking for the evil, the political sinner, the unjust one, the oppressor, the bad person over there. The zealot permits himself or herself righteously to attack them, to hate them, even to kill them. And when they do, they think they are “doing a holy duty for God” (John 16:2).

You can take it as a general rule that when you don’t transform your pain you will always transmit it. Zealots and contemporary liberals often have the right conclusion, but their tactics and motives are often filled with self, power, control and the same righteousness they hate in conservatives. Basically, they want to do something to avoid holding the pain until it transforms them. Because of this too-common pattern, I have come to mistrust almost all righteous indignation and moral outrage. In my experience, it is hardly ever from God.

“Resurrected” people prayerfully bear witness against injustice and evil — but also agree compassionately to hold their own complicity in that same evil. It is not over there, it is here. It is our problem, not theirs. The Risen Christ, not accidentally, still carries the wounds in his hands and side.

We’ve all been there at different times — I know I’ve been there — trying to drive out “the devil” with our own “prince of devils” (Mark 3:22). You’re actually energized by having an enemy, someone to hate, because it takes away the inner shame and relieves your inner anxiety.

It gives you, strangely enough, a very false sense of control and superiority, because you’ve spotted the evil and, thank God, it’s over there. As long as they are the problem and you can keep your focus on changing them, correcting them, expelling them as the contaminating element, then you can sit in a reasonably comfortable position. But it’s a position that the saints called pax perniciosa, a dangerous and false peace. It feels like peace, but it’s not a true peace. It is the peace of avoidance, denial and projection. The Peace of the Crucified comes from holding the tension; the dangerous peace comes from expelling it elsewhere or denying the pain. Yet, to the untrained, it feels like peace.

It has taken us a long time to realize that we cannot afford to hate because we become a mirror, a disguised image of the same. Once you let the other determine the energy and agenda, you can only react to it, and soon you are the same energy and the same agenda. But you can’t see it.

This leads us to the second diversionary tactic: the way of flight. This is the common path of the “Pharisee,” the uninformed, the falsely innocent and often the conservative type. They deny the pain altogether, they refuse to carry the shadow side of anything in themselves or in their chosen groups. There will be no uncertainty, there will be no ambiguity. There will be no problems. It is a form of narcotic, and sometimes probably necessary to get through the day.

But the flight people are also subject to hypocrisy, projection or just plain illusion: “We are right and you are wrong. The world is divided into black and white and I know who the good guys and bad guys are. It’s all figured out in my head, and fortified with well-fed emotions and like-minded people.” These attitudes can generate huge energy, identity and perseverance. One sits on a pedestal of purity and false innocence. Who would want to leave, if not for a major humiliation that possibly forces you into the pain? Paul symbolically had to be thrown to the ground and have scales fall from his eyes to admit that he was a self-serving Pharisee.

Denial is an understandable way of coping and surviving. It is often the only way that many people can deal with the complexity of their human situation. Sometimes when you conscientize (to arouse political consciousness) the poor or do social analysis for the happily naïve middle class, you wonder if you are not just creating psychic problems for them. Wouldn’t it be better if they did not know? Now they will only be angry and dissatisfied. That is the dangerous path of enlightenment.

The question is now more daring yet. How can I know, work through the anger, and still be a life-giving presence? First naiveté is different from second naiveté. The first is a kind of virtuous ignorance; the latter is a spirit of informed openness, often gained after disillusionment. In fact, between the two there is all the difference in the world. But, normally, we are so sure that people will not be able to work through true enlightenment that we avoid telling them the whole truth. Or they avoid knowing the whole truth. It is much, much easier not to know. Jesus himself understood from the cross: “Father, forgive them, they do not know” (Luke 23:34). They really don’t know! But Jesus took the harder path, to know and still forgive, and still understand.

That is the Third Way, beyond fight and beyond flight, and yet in a certain sense including both of them. It’s fighting in a new way from within, and fleeing from the quick, egocentric response. Only God can hold such an act together within us. The small self is always too small. Only the True Self can live the gospel.

Maybe our greatest disservice has been that we have given the Law and the gospel to the fragile self that is incapable even of understanding it. We ended up condemning people to subterfuge, denial, mental gymnastics and trivialization — by preaching the Law without also offering people that “identity transplant” that we call the gospel! The Third Way is impossible except for the True Self, “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). Paul took most of his Letter to the Romans to struggle with this dilemma. Law without gospel actually paralyzes and condemns to failure.

4th Core Principle

Practical truth is more likely found at the bottom and the edges than at the top or the center of most groups, institutions, and cultures.

On the Edge of the Inside

The Prophetic Position

One is struck in the study of saints, angels, and gods by a pattern that seems quaint and harmless, yet it is so common that I know there must be a deeper meaning. There always seem to be guardians and spirits of doors, bridges, crossovers, exits, and entranceways. I saw it all over Asia, read about it in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and am familiar with it in Greek mythology, with guardian angels, and with Catholic saints like St. John Nepomuk (Why do we need a patron of bridges?), St. Christopher (ferry drivers), and even St. Peter with his keys. What is going on here?

Ancients knew that you need guidance, patronage, and protection as you move from one place or state to another, whenever you cross a bridge, as it were. You had better know what you are doing when you leave one group or place to join another. There are boundary issues that must be dealt with, dues and respects that must be paid, and you better not enter or leave anything until you know what you are doing. They seem to be saying, “Don’t move your boundary markers before you know the price and you have the right inspiration.” Even Charon who ferried the dead Greeks across the River Styx into Hades, would not do it unless the dead had been properly buried and they carried his payment in their mouths.

The edge of things is a liminal space — a very sacred place where guardian angels are especially available and needed. The edge is a holy place or, as the Celts called it, “a thin place,” and you have to be taught how to live there. To take your position on the spiritual edge of things is to learn how to move safely in and out, back and forth, across and return. It is a prophetic position, not a rebellious or antisocial one. When you live on the edge of anything, with respect and honor (and this is crucial!), you are in a very auspicious and advantageous position. You are free from its central seductions, but also free to hear its core message in very new and creative ways. When you are at the center of something, you usually confuse the essentials with the non-essentials, and get tied down by trivia, loyalty tests, and job security. Not much truth can happen there.

To live on the edge of the inside is different than being an insider, a “company man,” or a dues-paying member. Yes, you have learned the rules and you understand and honor the system as far as it goes, but you do not need to protect it, defend it, or promote it. It has served its initial and helpful function. You have learned the rules well enough to know how to “break the rules properly,” which is not really to break them at all, but to find their true purpose: “not to abolish the law but to complete it” as Jesus rightly puts it (Matthew 5:17). A doorkeeper must love both the inside and the outside of his or her group, and know how to move between these two loves.

I am convinced that when Jesus sent his first disciples on the road to preach to “all the nations” (Matthew 28:19 and Luke 24:47) and to “all creation” (Mark 16:15), he was also training them to risk leaving their own security systems and yet to be gatekeepers for them. He told them to leave the home office and connect with other worlds. This becomes even clearer in his instruction for them “not to take any baggage” (Mark 6:8) and to submit to the hospitality and even the hostility of others (Mark 6:10–11). Jesus says the same of himself in John’s Gospel (10:7) where he calls himself “the gate” where people “will go freely in and out, and be sure of finding pasture” (10:9). What an amazing permission! He sees himself more as a place of entrance and exit than a place of settlement. Funny that we always noticed the “in” but never the “out”! There is a place and time for being outside, or you never really understand or appreciate the inside. A gatekeeper stewards the doorway in both directions, and knows the right motivation and timing for both. Like a good shepherd, s/he leads to the best pasture at the best time.

I remember when a former bishop of Colorado Springs told me: “Many of the best Catholics in my diocese left the church for a while — and then came back for adult and right reasons.” One does not hear that kind of wisdom much anymore. Today it is all about being a consummate insider, which now is called “orthodoxy.” Jesus clearly was much more concerned with journey, integrity, and what we would call “orthopraxy” (our 8th principle of practice over theory) more than mere correct ideas or belonging to the correct group.

Jesus was not teaching or maintaining any purity system (which is to say a “belonging system”), but Jesus used everything, even people’s mistakes/“impurity,” to bring them to God! That’s good news for everybody, if they are honest. He was into a process of transformation more than a belonging system. For example, he says lovingly to an inquisitive scribe, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34) — affirming his particular stage on the journey, without telling him that he must travel all the way. He wanted searchers more than settlers, prophets more than priests, honest journeyers more than gatherings of the so-called healthy. He had been taught well by his own Jewish exodus and exile.

All of these situations are describing the unique and rare position of a Biblical prophet — he or she is always on the edge of the inside. Not an outsider throwing rocks, not a comfortable insider who defends the status quo, but one who lives precariously with two perspectives held tightly together — the faithful insider and the critical outsider at the same time. Not ensconced safely inside, but not so far outside as to lose compassion or understanding. Like a carpenter’s level, the prophet has to balance the small bubble in the glass between here and there, between yes and no, between loyalty and critique. The prophet must hold these perspectives in a loving and necessary creative tension. It is a unique kind of seeing and living, which will largely leave the prophet with “nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58) while easily meriting the “hatred of all” — who have invariably taken sides in opposing groups (Luke 21:16–17). The prophet speaks for God, and almost no one else, it seems.

People hiding inside of belonging systems are very threatened by those who are not within that group. They are threatened by anyone who has found their citizenship in places they cannot control. Matthew’s Gospel refers to this larger place as “the kingdom of heaven.” When one has found their treasure elsewhere, and is utterly grounded in the “passion” and “pathos” (to use Walter Brueggemann’s magnificent words) of a transcendent God, they are both indestructible and uncontrollable by worldly systems. Without it, they will seek their treasure and payoffs inside of each and every passing kingdom. We have let self-centered opportunism pass for love of God for too many centuries. Seeking a permanent reward is not the same as the search for God.

If you look at some who have served the prophetic role in modern times, like Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, John XXIII, Simone Weil, and Oscar Romero, you will notice that they all hold this exact position on the edge of the inside. They tend to be, each in their own way, orthodox, conservative, traditional clergy, intellectuals, believers, but that very authentic inner experience and membership allows them to utterly critique the systems that they are a part of. You might say that their enlightened actions clarified what our mere belief systems really mean. These prophets critiqued Christianity by the very values that they learned from Christianity. Every one of these men and women was marginalized, fought, excluded, persecuted, or even killed by the illusions that they exposed and the systems they tried to reform. It is the structural fate of a prophet (Matthew 23:29–36). You can only truly unlock systems from inside, but then you are invariably locked out.

When you live on the edge of the inside, you will almost wish you were outside. Then you are merely an enemy, a pagan, a persona non grata, and can largely be ignored, written-off, or even consider yourself martyred and special. But if you are both inside and outside, you are an ultimate threat, a possible reformer, and a lasting invitation to a much larger world.

5th Core Principle

We will support true authority, the ability to “author” life in others, regardless of the group.

If It Is True, Then It Has to Be True Everywhere

St. Vincent of Lerin in the year 434 was the first to define the word “catholic,” and it was used by scholars for much of the first millennium of Christianity and called the “Vincentian Canon.” It became a way to discern what was the true belief of the church. Vincent’s in-house principle was amazingly simple and clear and yet also shocking and seemingly impossible: “Now in the Catholic Church itself we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all. That is truly and properly ‘Catholic,’ as is shown by the very force and meaning of the word, which comprehends everything almost universally.” In other words, if it is true, then it has to be true everywhere and all the time, or it is not true!

Most of history has been content with cultural truth, denominational truth, national truth, scientific truth, rational truth, factual truth, personal truth, etc. These are all needed and helpful, but the job of true religion is to detach from all of these and yet use all of these in the largest possible synthesis, and find the Big Truth that is beyond any of these smaller tribal truths. This is what makes authentic religion inherently subversive and threatening to all systems of power and control. It always says, “Yes, but!” or “Yes, and there is still more.” The philosophical principle used in Scholastic philosophy was called sic et non (Latin for “yes and no”), and allowed the early Christian universities to argue both sides of everything without being considered heretical or antagonistic. It always opened up to the bigger picture without closing down smaller pictures. We would do well to return to such horizons of learning.

In Biblical language or Islamic language, the first commandment is always something like this: “God alone is God!” It sounds like you are saying nothing until you realize how hard it is to refuse the creation of smaller gods and idols. Humans tend to be idol-makers by choice, practice, and compulsion. Jesus’ metaphor for this Big Truth beyond our little truths was the “Reign of God” or the “Kingdom of God.” Maybe we would just say “in the light of eternity” or “in the final analysis” or “in the eyes of God.” But these are all ways of moving away from tribal thinking and looking out at life from eyes other than our own, and larger than our own. It is hard work. Philosophically, this larger and constantly recurring wisdom was called the Perennial Tradition. No one group owns the Perennial Tradition, but they own parts of it, and the group that owns most of it is the one that can honor and include all of the other perennial parts. We see this inclusivity to an amazing degree in Jesus, and for me it is the clear indication that you in fact practice the true religion. The true religion is precisely the one that can see and honor God everywhere, and not just in themselves.

The brilliant work of the socio-biologist E. O. Wilson is offering us new understanding of the deep human identification with group and tribe. He says our identification with our own groups — in all of history — was the way we found meaning and security in a chaotic world. “I am too small, but my group is big and strong and right” takes away loads of anxiety. He says that it made the whole world less disorienting and dangerous, and people do not tend to move beyond this frame easily or without major resistance. But it is also a shield against all kinds of larger truth, precisely because this or that idea did not come from my group, and so I do not even consider it as worthy of attention! This has kept history at a very low level of consciousness.

Tribal thinking allows us to build on a certain sense of ourselves as loving and altruistic, because we are that way to a certain degree inside of our specific family, ethnicity, neighborhood, or religion — where we strengthen the social bonds that in fact profit us in the long run! Such a social identity does wonders for your personal identity, or lack of one. But, in fact, we can now be quite selfish and even violent toward other groups — and such negativity will actually be considered as virtue! Our ego is protected from both sides; we get to be selfish while thinking of ourselves as loving, generous, and even sacrificial.

The tribal ego gets us off scot-free, and all in the name of loyalty, heroism, obedience, and holy war! Is this not the story line of much of history? Now we can understand Jesus’ statement in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard how it was said: ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy’ (Leviticus 19:18), but I say to you, ‘love your enemies’” (Matthew 5:43–44). He recognizes the common disguise with 20/20 vision. Most religion has not had such clear vision.

Seeing this rather consistent pattern in the world of religion, and our Christian avoidance and denial of inter-faith and ecumenical cooperation, we felt this needed to be a foundational principle of the CAC. We are always to work with — and for — anybody who is willing to work with us. We have no time for turf battles: “I am for Paul,” “I am for Apollos,” “I am for Cephas.” Christ has not been parceled out, says Paul (1 Corinthians 1:12–13). It does not matter who said it first or who got the credit, or even who said it best. If it is the Perennial Tradition, it is common domain and copyrighted by the Holy Spirit alone.

Such recognition of “authority” beyond our own group is structurally demanded of Christians by the very fact that our Bible includes the Hebrew Bible! Inclusivity is our process from the very start. Every Christian liturgy reads authoritative texts from the Torah, the Jewish Prophets, and the Wisdom Writings. We listen to Abraham, Moses, and Elijah, who never knew Jesus. The implications should be clear: we have been taught by non-Christian authorities from the beginning! The door is opened, and must remain open or we become ethnic instead of catholic, and avoid the Vincentian canonical principle.

The pattern continues with John’s Gospel using the concept of the Logos (John 1:1), which was first used by Heraclitus and the Greek Stoic philosophers. Soon we have Jewish Peter coming to his daring and hard-won realization that “God does not have favorites among nations” (Acts 10:34). Paul is willing to quote non-Jewish sources and worldviews to the Athenians (Acts 17:26–29) in order to preach a more universal message. We also have centuries of reliance by many first millennium Fathers and Doctors of the Church (too many to count!) upon the “pagan” categories of Plato and Aristotle — to make their Christian points! This clear pattern kept Thomas Aquinas from being recognized and canonized for some time, and yet today his revolutionary attempt to “baptize” Aristotle is deemed the highest level of Catholic orthodoxy. Augustine and Bonaventure did much the same with Plato. This is our heritage, and it is a heritage of using universal wisdom to teach Christian truth.

Visit the Vatican and you will see Oracles, Sibyls, pagan philosophers, poets, and mythological figures everywhere in the art and statuary. Whatever could support orthodoxy was to be used, even in the Sistine chapel, where we elect the Pope! Dante has the Roman poet Virgil leading him and teaching him through the “Inferno” and “Purgatorio.” If we did any of these things today, we would be highly suspect and surely criticized for softening the message, dangerous accommodation, or “consorting with the enemy.” In so many ways, the siege mentality of the Reformations, the Enlightenment, and modern secularism has sent us into a tailspin — backwards. Exclusion is our style, inclusion is rare.

We come from a tradition of both faith and reason. It was once called the “Catholic Synthesis.” The first question was not “Is it directly taught in Scripture?” but “Is it true?” And this truth might well be demonstrated — in fact would have to be demonstrated — by disciplines other than Scripture, like science, mathematics, biology, and history, etc. If it is true, then it will be true from all angles. We should, however, use the negative argument that it could not be in direct contradiction to a clear teaching of Scripture. That is where many of the Catholic-Protestant arguments of history have come from, and they were often very clarifying arguments — if they proceeded by the sic et non method of teaching — but for most of history we were dualistic thinkers and could not rise to this occasion. But now we can!

We legitimately play upon the very word “authority” in the Fifth Core Principle, as one who “authors.” These two words are from the same Latin root (auctor), and I think with very good reason. Authority must finally be inherent, it must be able to do the job, to generate what it commands, to engender the actual reward that it promises by its commands. Jesus again puts it well, when he says that the function of law and authority is “to achieve its purpose” (Matthew 5:18). Six times in a row Jesus repeats the phrase, “It was said, and I say!” (Matthew 5:21–44), in each case leading us to his “authoring” of people at a much deeper level than the mere letter of the law was able to do. Paul takes the same liberties many times, and on occasion even admits he is doing it! “This is from me and not from the Lord!” (1 Corinthians 7:12). A Master Teacher knows when the law is achieving its purpose and when it is not, and knows when to change the rules to bring about actual growth and life in people.

Religious authority is not like secular authority. It is not an end in itself, but for the sake of “life and life more abundantly” (John 10:10). St. Thomas Aquinas’ principle was “Prius vita quam doctrina” (Summa Theologica, “De Anima,” II, 37), translated as “Life itself is more important than doctrines.” Our Fifth Core Principle is important to the future of the CAC and the Living School for Action and Contemplation because it will keep us both grounded in the Perennial Tradition and its natural authority, and also help us to see how broad, common, and recurrent that Perennial Tradition is. Any temptation toward individualism is taken from us by our necessary “obedience” to this Big Picture Wisdom (Romans 16:25–27). If a non-Catholic, a non-Christian, a non-white person, a non-American, a gay, a non-educated person, a non-male, says it, our only question is to be “Is it true?” This will allow us to follow that question with every possible yes and also with any necessary no.

If it is the Perennial Tradition, it will somehow keep recurring at different levels and in different forms and from different voices and disciplines, and in Vincent of Lerin’s daunting phrase, it will have “been believed everywhere, always and by all,” which is still the best argument for Great Truth. No tribe, nor its language, will ever encompass the magnificent and always mysterious Reign of God.

6th Core Principle

Life is about discovering the right questions more than having the right answers.

Questions Versus Answers

I know this clever concept of “having the right questions” is often quoted, but I must admit that it always sounds to me like fuzzy idealism or a line from a graduation address. We all got to that graduation by giving back clear answers to happy professors, strangely enough. There are times when only answers are helpful, not more questions. Obviously we need truthful answers to technical, mathematical, practical and logistical questions. I surely do not like to be slowed down by someone opening floodgates of questions, philosophical musings, and relativistic ramblings when there is a need for clarity, speed, or closure. Perhaps this aphorism is just an excuse for people who like open-endedness and lightweight thinking?

Yet we made this one of our core principles here at the CAC: “Life is about discovering the right questions more than having the right answers.” We think that this keeps us on the path of ongoing discernment, which is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:10). The key concepts here are actually the words “discovering” versus “having.” A discerning and inquiring spirit will make us a discoverer in touch with our deeper unconscious and the deeper truth, whereas a glib “I have the answers” spirit makes us into a protector of clichés. Surely answers are wonderful when they are true and keep us on the human and spiritual path. But answers are not wonderful when they become something we have as an ego possession, allowing us to be arrogant, falsely self-assured, and closed down as a person. In other words, answers are a plus in the technical and practical world, but a liability in the world of philosophy, art, poetry, invention, enterprise, and the mysterious ways of the Spirit.

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways.... As high as the heavens are from the earth so are my thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9). This depth and mystery to God leaves all of us as perpetual searchers and seekers, always novices and beginners. It is the narrow and dark way of faith. “Search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you,” says Jesus (Luke 11:9). There is something inherently valuable about an attitude of spiritual curiosity and persistent “knocking.” It creates in us what the Greek philosophers and St. Thomas Aquinas call the “cardinal” virtues: prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. These were considered the “hinge” virtues (cardo) on which all the other moral virtues hang and depend. If you study each of these four central virtues, you will see that they each require an ongoing broadening, discerning, balancing, and discovery of God’s will and God’s ways. They are never virtues that you ever fully possess or have, but they are always dependent on time, discernment, prayer, and listening to others beyond your self. They demand gradual discovery and humility, and they refuse to be “had”!

There is never any one who can say s/he is perfectly prudent, always courageous and persistent, consistently moderate and balanced, or equally just in regard to others’ rights. So we instead prefer virtues that allow our egos an immediate sense of superiority and settledness, issues that close down any necessity for ongoing prayer, struggle, or ambiguity (read “faith”). Remember, the ego demands satisfaction. It is a “hungry ghost” as the Buddhists say. Most people would actually prefer “satisfying untruth” to “unsatisfying truth.” And maybe Big Truth is always a bit unsatisfying to the little human ego. The ego ghost is fragile and needy, and requires constant food to satisfy its emptiness. If you doubt that, watch the red button issues in both politics and religion. They are invariably body-based issues about which you have no doubt whether or not you did it. Issues like abortion, homosexuality, contraception, extramarital sex, attending Mass every Sunday, etc. allow immediate determination of guilt and ability to impute shame. Jesus did not emphasize these things because they tend to create righteousness systems. The hungry ghost is quickly satisfied here, whereas discerning whether you are really a just person could and should go on forever. It is very hard to shame anyone in regard to prudence, fortitude, justice, or moderation; and after thirty-five years as a confessor, I can tell you that these are never the issues that people mention as sinful. The real vices are well hidden; the real virtues are largely not sought. As Jesus put it, “You strain out gnats and swallow camels” (Matthew 23:24). The cardinal virtues do not appear to be our hinges at all, which might explain the superficiality of our morals.

The ego is formed by contraction. The soul is formed by expansion. The ego pulls itself into itself by comparing, competing, and separating itself from others: “I am not like that,” it says. The soul, however, does exactly the opposite: “I am that” (Tat Tvam Asi, as the Hindus say). It sees itself in God, the other, the flower and tree, the animal, and even the enemy: similarity instead of separateness. It participates in the human dilemma instead of placing itself above and beyond all tensions. But this is a long journey of transformation, which leads you to ever new questions about your own goodness, and where goodness really lies, your own evil, and where evil really lies. It is humiliating. Instead of a hungry ghost that demands answers/satisfaction/closure, we become Spirit-led persons who come to see “how wrong the world is about sin, how wrong it is about who was in the right, and how wrong it is about judgment” (John 16:8). Only those led by the Spirit into ever-deeper seeing, hearing, and surrendering — spiritual seekers and self questioners — will fall into the hands of the living God. This will always be “a narrow gate and a hard road” that “only a few will walk on” (Matthew 7:14).

So we want to encourage those few, and invite the many. We want to encourage our friends on a journey of seeking God, the quest for the Holy Grail. The title of the classic Quest for the Holy Grail came from Parsifal’s endless search for — and forgetting of — “the question” (“Whom does the Grail serve?”). It took his whole life and journey to remember the question at all, and eventually to understand it. It was holding onto the right question that kept him on his quest!

St. Benedict said that the only requirement for the admission of a monk is that he is “seeking the Lord.” Not religious careerism, not security, not status, not roles and titles, not vestments and habits, not a portfolio of answers, but simple and humble seeking of God. Spiritual seeking will make him a perpetual and humble student instead of a contented careerist, a quester rather than a squatter, an always impatient, yearning and desirous lover. I will bet on such a spiritual seeker any day. They are on the real and only quest.

………………

Jesus is asked 183 questions directly or indirectly in the four Gospels. Do you know that he only answered 3 of them forth-rightly? The others he ignored, kept silent about, responded with a question, changed the subject, told a story or gave an audio-visual aid to make his point, told them it was the wrong question, revealed their insincerity or hypocrisy, made the exact opposite point, or redirected the question elsewhere! Check it out for yourself. He himself asks 307 questions, which would seem to set a pattern for imitation. Considering this, it is really rather amazing that the church became an official answering machine and a very self-assured program for “sin management.” Many, if not most, of Jesus’ teachings would never pass contemporary orthodoxy tests in either the Roman Office or the Southern Baptist Convention. Most of his statements are so open to misinterpretation that, should he teach today, he would probably be called a “relativist” in almost all areas except one: his insistence upon the goodness and reliability of God. That was his only consistent absolute.

………………

Scholars tell me that it is these three questions that Jesus answers directly:

“‘So you are a king, then?’ said Pilate. ‘Yes, I am a king. I was born for this’” (John 18:37). Yet even this is said after first clarifying what king and kingdom mean. Rather relativistic.

“‘Lord, teach us how to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘This is how you pray,’” and he taught them the Our Father (Luke 11:1–4), which is really more of a request.

“To disconcert him, one of the Pharisees put to him a question, ‘Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?’ Jesus said, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul.... And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:35–39). This one question he surely answered directly and forthrightly.

7th Core Principle

True religion leads us to an experience of our True Self and undermines my false self.

True Self, False Self

The True Self is who you are because of the divine indwelling, the Holy Spirit within you (Romans 8:9). This is the solid basis for human sacredness, and it cannot be violated without “grieving the Holy Spirit who has marked you with his seal” (Ephesians 4:30). We are all tabernacles of God, says Paul (1 Corinthians 3:16–17), which for a temple-loving Jew was quite an affirmation. What happened in the Christ, the Anointed One, is an announcement of what is happening in all of us too. We are sons and daughters of heaven and earth, both at the same time. Much of the work of enlightenment is to put those two identities together, just as Jesus did.

The putting of the human and the divine together is what it means to be “the Christ” (Colossians 1:17–20), and what it means for us to be “the new Adam [and Eve!]” (1 Corinthians 15:45–49). Ephesians could not make it much clearer: “You too have been stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit that was promised — this is the pledge of your inheritance” (1:13b). Notice I am using a lot of Scripture here, because most Christians have never been seriously taught about their inherent union with God, and will find all kinds of self-hating reasons to deny it. The false self feels very inadequate, and it is in many ways, which is why we call it false! Only the True Self can dare to believe the Good News of the Gospel.

The false self is characterized by separateness, which it then trumps up with all kinds of false self-sufficiency. The false self is who you think you are, and thinking does not make it so. It is your identity privately concocted by means of culture, education, class, race, family, gender identity, clothes, and money. That’s all that Adam and Eve have once they leave the Garden where they first walked with God. Don’t feel too bad for them. It seems that you have to leave the Garden. You have to create a false self to get started. The only trouble with this false self is that you take it far too seriously. It is always passing away, it is going to die. Only the True Self is eternal. We all suffer from a terrible case of mistaken identity, which conclusion is agreed upon by almost all of the world religions.

In “Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” William Wordsworth says, “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.” I think that’s why we’re so fascinated by babies, because we suspect that they still enjoy their primal union. “Heaven lies about us in our infancy,” Wordsworth goes on to say. We all start in the garden, we leave the garden and “make a name for ourselves” — but it is not our original and true name. We slowly learn to shed our manufactured identities and fall back into the solid identity we had all along. That is why true conversions are so often described as homecomings, re-discoveries or, as Jacob put it, “You were there all the time, and I never knew it!” (Genesis 28:16). That is what we all would say when the false self eventually falls away and the True Self stands lovely and revealed.

Simply put, the false self is the disconnected and autonomous self. In that sense, it does not even exist. The Judeo-Christian tradition calls this state of disconnectedness “sin.” When you’re disconnected from your deepest Being, you’re in the state of sin, or what some modern thinkers call the state of alienation. You do not naturally belong here or anywhere and you look for all kinds of false and addictive ways to fill up your emptiness. God just patiently waits and is most eager to forgive, saying what he said about those who killed him, “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). The false self is not really the bad self; it just does not know that there is anything like a True Self. Your false self is basically the state of unconsciousness. Your True Self is full consciousness, but it does take a while to get there.

The True Self is characterized by communion and deep contentment. It’s okay, right here, right now. The True Self is the realigned self. It has to do with participating in a Universal Being that is beyond yours. Your life is not about you. You are about life. Now, that doesn’t mean you stay in the True Self 24 hours a day. Life is three steps forward and two steps backward. But once you know the big picture, you will never be satisfied with the little picture again.

The true you, the True Self, cannot really be hurt. There’s nothing to prove or protect with the True Self. It is indestructible. It’s your eternal soul or your identity in God. It’s the Great I AM (Exodus 3:14), continued in you and me. Yahweh asks Adam and Eve, in the midst of their shame, “Who told you that you were naked?” And soon God “makes clothes for them which they put on” (3:21). After God first creates them, Yahweh’s second action is to protect them and take away their naked shame.

The false self easily feels almost constant shame and guilt. It is inherently insecure and afraid, and must dress itself up in all kinds of unworkable ways, even self-destructive ways. This is why it is called sin, and why we are so warned against it. As Paul puts it, “When I act against my own will, it is not my true self doing it, but sin which lives in me” (Romans 7:20). So, even Paul uses this term to make the very same points.

The main purpose of religion is to lead you to an experience of your True Self, who you are in God and who God is in you. That’s why, as disappointed as I get in religion, I can’t give up on healthy religion, because it alone is prepared to point you beyond the mere psychological or personal — to the cosmic, to the universal, to the Absolute. Only healthy, great religion is prepared to realign, re-heal, reconnect all things and reposition us inside of the biggest possible picture. Basically, when you say you love God, you are saying you love everything. No exceptions. That is precisely what it means, and we must begin to make that clear.

God loves the eternal Christ, the anointed one, the Christ child in you, and God can only love you. It is similar to parents’ love for their children, which is often even more intense and passionate when they see that child self-destruct.

That part of you which has always loved God — and lets God love you — is often called your soul. I also call it your True Self. Once the problem is solved deeply inside me, and I can recognize and honor the divine image in me, then I can honor the inherent dignity of everyone else, too. It is a free gift given to me and given to them. Henceforth, I find inherent value based in an objective True Self, and all the disguises of all false selves fall away as relative and passing — my own and everybody else’s, too.

8th Core Principle

We do not think ourselves into a new way of living; but we live ourselves into a new way of thinking.

Orthopraxy Leads to Real Orthodoxy

A few months ago I again found myself using the above phrase, a great one-liner that had been central to our pastoral vision at the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati. Then I wondered why I had not been using such a great teaching tool for some time. How did the phrase slip out of my consciousness, since I actually believe it now more than ever? I am still not sure why, especially since some volunteer groups had even put it on the back of their T-shirts! Then I realized that it clearly belongs in our Vision and Mission statement of the Center for Action and Contemplation, since it is, in fact, at the core of our model of education here.

It has grounded all our CAC-sponsored programs, including the Internships and our immersion trips to the border in Juarez, Mexico, and the Men’s Rites of Passage. It is underneath our recognition that the “contents” — which we emphasize here — tend to spill all over the place if there is not a proper “container” which inherently validates the contents. Every vision needs a vehicle or the vision itself soon becomes vague, distorted, and unshareable. Jesus said that every wine needs a proper wineskin — or both are finally lost (Mark 2:22). So the Board of Directors of the CAC officially and happily agreed that this would be our 8th official core principle, emphasizing the importance of praxis over theory, and would be added to our vision and philosophy statement. I will talk about it a bit here, so you will know why we think this is so important.

Education theory in the last fifty years has come more and more to the conclusion that the lecture method and mere reading are actually among the least effective forms of teaching. They are highly passive, individualistic, do not necessarily integrate head with heart or body, and leave the ego in its usual defended position and virtually untouched. As long as our ego self is in the driver’s seat, nothing really new or challenging is allowed. Remember our ego is committed to not changing, and is highly defensive by its very nature.

The form of education which most changes people in lasting ways has to touch them at a broader level than the thinking or reading mind. Some call it integrative education, transformative education, or even lifestyle education. Somehow we need to engage in hands-on experience, emotional risk taking, moving outside of our comfort zones, with different people than our usual flattering friends. We need some expanded level of spiritual seeing or nothing really changes at a deep level. Within minutes or hours of entertaining a new idea, we quickly return to our old friends, our assured roles, our familiar neural grooves, our ego patterns of response, business as usual; it is as if we never read that latest book or heard that last lecture or sermon! We are all creatures of habit and fall most easily into the familiar and the customary.

The genuinely new or different is always a threat. Unless there is something strong enough to rearrange our worldview, call our assumptions into question, and also engage our heart and body (“at the cellular level,” as I like to call it), we will seldom move to new interior or exterior places. God has a hard time getting us to join Abraham and Sarah in “leaving your country and your family for a new land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1–2).

The Dalai Lama said it well: “Every change of mind is first of all a change of heart.” Equally, “Every change of heart is soon a change of mind.” This is the urgently needed work of mature spirituality and the vision of our work here at the Center. All this probably seems strange coming from someone who writes and talks as much as I do, but actually it is exactly my experience as a teacher that has led me to this conclusion. Many folks over the years, even very good-willed people, have read and listened to my presentations of the Gospel yet have actually done very little — in terms of lifestyle changes, economic or political rearrangements, or even church reform. After all, “Church is just believing ideas to be true or false, isn’t it?” “Religion is about attending services, isn’t it?” They just listen to my ideas and judge them to be true or false. They either “like” them or do not “like” them. But it never gets to any new “practices” or changes of patterns or habits. Transformative education is not asking you to believe or disbelieve in any doctrines or dogmas. It is saying, “Try this!” Then you will know something to be true or false for yourself.

So here at the CAC we will continue to say, “Try this, go here, change sides, move outside your comfort zone, make some new contacts, let go of your usual role and attractive self image, walk instead of drive, make a friend from another race or class, visit not as a tourist but in the neighborhoods, go to the jail or to the border, attend another church for a while, etc. etc. etc.” Then we can live ourselves into new ways of thinking, which then seem so called-for that we wonder how we could have ever thought in any other way! Before new experience, new thinking is difficult and dangerous. Afterward, the new thinking is natural and even necessary.

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Title Page

Copyright

Contents

The Eight Core Principles

Foreword

1st Core Principle

The teaching of Jesus is our central reference point.

Standing with Jesus

2nd Core Principle

We need a contemplative mind in order to do compassionate action.

Contemplation and Compassion

3rd Core Principle

The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. Oppositional energy only creates more of the same.

Zealots and Pharisees

4th Core Principle

Practical truth is more likely found at the bottom and the edges than at the top or the center of most groups, institutions, and cultures.

On the Edge of the Inside

5th Core Principle

We will support true authority, the ability to “author” life in others, regardless of the group.

If It Is True, Then It Has to Be True Everywhere

6th Core Principle

Life is about discovering the right questions more than having the right answers.

Questions Versus Answers

7th Core Principle

True religion leads us to an experience of our True Self and undermines my false self.

True Self, False Self

8th Core Principle

We do not think ourselves into a new way of living; but we live ourselves into a new way of thinking.

Orthopraxy Leads to Real Orthodoxy