Be the change!

Our weekly book group at church, The Wisdom Class, is almost finished with our reading and discussion of The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See by Richard Rohr. We've been meeting since September on this book and have had lively sharing each week.

The last chapter of the book is entitled "In the end, it all comes down to this" (159-162). As Rohr writes at the beginning of this section, "Be the change you want to see in the world" by Mohandas Gandhi. So here are some of the changes that Rohr suggests:

• If you want others to be more loving, choose to love first.

• If you want a reconciled outer world, reconcile your own inner world.

• If you are working for peace out there, create it inside as well.

• If you notice other people's irritability, let go of your own.

• If you wish to find some outer stillness, find it within yourself.

• If you are working for justice, treat yourself justly, too.

• If you find yourself resenting the faults of others, stop resenting your own.

• If the world seems desperate, let go of your own despair.

• If you want a just world, start being just in small ways yourself.

• If your situation feels hopeless, honor the one spot of hope inside you.

• If you want to find God, then honor God within you, and you will always see God beyond you. For it is only God in you who knows where and how to look for God.

Rohr, Richard. The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See. NY: Crossroad Publishing, 2009. 161.

Now these points can sound like platitudes. At times, wisdom looks like that. I remember viewing Al-Anon sayings during one period of my life, such as "Live one day at a time" or "Let go and let God," as old sayings that didn't really mean anything nowadays. But they do! Anything looked at superficially or dismissively seems insignificant; looking slowly in concentration reveals much more.

So I challenge you to choose one point of Rohr's and sit with it for a few minutes or hold it in your mind for awhile longer.