FALLING UPWARDS: A SPIRITUALITY FOR THE TWO HALVES OF LIFE
Richard Rohr
Jossey-Bass, 2011
Franciscan Father Rohr is one of the great teachers and practitioners of the contemplative path in Catholicism, a contemporary successor to Thomas Merton. He is also founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation and a regular contributor to Tikkun. Rohr’s previous book, The Naked Now, was a stunning exploration of mystical Christianity, revealing the nonduality that underlies the biblical claim of the oneness of God and the oneness of humanity as well. Mystics learn how to let go of control — and that is precisely the wisdom that is needed in the second half of life when, after having built whatever we could in the way of career and income and family, we face a different set of challenges as our bodily strength and earlier successes begin to fade. Rohr shows how we can “fall upward” into a spiritually rich experience in which the soul has found its fullness. He shows us how to live inside the big picture of reality as we realize that great people come to serve, not to be served, and that the falling apart of the first half of our lives can be a blessing if we recognize it as such.