From a friend:

I heard Rohr recently, he appealed to poems to demonstrate his point about the contemplative way of seeing. Specifically he used the following poem:

~~~

Snow Geese (by Mary Oliver)

Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!

What a task

to ask

of anything, or anyone,

yet it is ours,

and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.

One fall day I heard

above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound

I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was

a flock of snow geese, winging it

faster than the ones we usually see,

and, being the color of snow, catching the sun

so they were, in part at least, golden. I

held my breath

as we do

sometimes

to stop time

when something wonderful

has touched us

as with a match,

which is lit, and bright,

but does not hurt

in the common way,

but delightfully,

as if delight

were the most serious thing

you ever felt.

The geese

flew on,

I have never seen them again.

Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.

Maybe I won’t.

It doesn’t matter.

What matters

is that, when I saw them,

I saw them

as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.

~~~

In particular, Rohr referred to the line “What matters is that, when I saw them, I saw them” as the kind of contemplative stance he’s talking about. He appealed to this by saying that most people see things as _they_ are, not as they _are_. That is, people view things through their own lens of discrimination, rather than seeing the thing for what it actually is. He says that the contemplative stance is an attempt to see things as they really are.

Incidentally, I’m told Rohr has never written a book: people actually transcribe his words from his talks and then condense them down to something more readable. He sells an enormous amount of tapes and cds, more I think than any other scholar of his kind. I assume this has something to do with Rohr’s focus on experiencing events, rather than getting hung up on words per se. He is an amazing orator. Anyway, it struck me because you mentioned that his use of words made him vulnerable to his own objections; and I wondered whether that fact might not lend him some credibility in that direction.

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• “You Raise Me Up” (Do they sing this at your church?)
• Great God your love has called us here (Brian Wren)
• Amazing Grace by Wintley Phipps
• An Australian Hymn To The Tune Of Waltzing Matilda
• By the Babe Unborn

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