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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Seventeen

Liminal Space

The Presence of Spirit
Monday, April 27, 2020

Many things can bring us to the “threshold” of our ordinary ways of thinking and behaving, but even good rituals are merely “stand-ins” until Reality itself, often in the form of great love or great suffering, steps in and changes us forever. My friend Paula D’Arcy, with whom I have taught many times over the years, lost her husband and young daughter in a tragic car accident while she was pregnant with their second child. This story from Paula reveals how liminal moments can occur at any time.

One afternoon, my heart breaking, I began sorting through the clothes my daughter Sarah would never wear. A dress lay across my lap, a little piece of white cotton. It evoked one more moment . . . of bitter tears and confused disbelief. . . . Life was not supposed to turn out this way. . . .

It was such an innocent and common thing—a child’s garment. Yet even as it broke my heart, that dress became an opening; the soft cotton tore at me from within and began to empty me.

You are not the only heartbroken parent in the world, it said. The pain of loss is not yours alone. Disappointment is the human condition. I continued to stare at the cotton and lace, but something had shifted. The dress was somehow connecting me to the texture and mystery of greater things . . .

Without fully understanding why, I began to soften. I saw life’s contour, its density and its brilliance, just as it is, nothing more. . . . I saw how I’d been caught in a script of my own creation and . . . was totally caught up in my own world—my emotions, my wants, and my needs. . . . Now it was simply my time—my turn to know the darkness and discover whether or not I was brave enough to accept the human journey and find a way through. . . .

I slowly began to see that within the cells of every living thing is the same essence—the presence of spirit. The heart of our journey is to awaken to this spirit within. . . .

Hardly anything turns out the way you expected it to, and you’re frequently ready to write life off as too paradoxical and too difficult to endure. Then some indescribable light fights its way through the impenetrable dark—an unpredictable, unimportant, runaway moment that lights up everything you’ve been unable to see until then. That light removes all the shoulds and oughts, all the illusions about fairness. You enter liminal space . . . In that space you take your first script [or what I call your false or separate self], the one that weighs five hundred pounds, the script that was cutting into your heart all along, bleeding you to death but you didn’t realize the wound or its seriousness—and you simply let it go.

Gateway to Action & Contemplation:
What word or phrase resonates with or challenges me? What sensations do I notice in my body? What is mine to do?

Prayer for Our Community:
O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings. Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other’s burdens and the weight of glory. Listen to our hearts’ longings for the healing of our world. [Please add your own intentions.] . . . Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God, amen.

Listen to Fr. Richard read the prayer.

Story from Our Community:
The shock of a pandemic was . . . overwhelming and foreboding. Spinning out of control, my life seemed to shrink and dissolve as I knew it. Now, as the days pass, sheltering in place has provided a rhythm for more creative arts, breath in nature and pausing in solitude. For that I give thanks. –M. Patrevito

Share your own story with us.

Paula D’Arcy, Waking Up To This Day: Seeing the Beauty Right Before Us (Orbis Books: 2009), 51–52, 53, 55.

Image credit: The Swan (No. 17) (detail), Hima af Klimt, 1915, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.

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News from the CAC

Oneing: Liminal Space

Liminal spaces, as Richard Rohr writes in the new issue of Oneing, enable us “to see beyond ourselves to the broader and more inclusive world that lies before us. When we embrace liminality, we choose hope over sleepwalking, denial, or despair. The world around us becomes again an enchanted universe." Explore personal experiences of liminality from Russ Hudson, Josh Radnor, Christian Peele, Felicia Murrell, Kirsten Oates, Byron McMillan and more in Oneing: Liminal Space.

Enneagram Mapmakers

Learn how to navigate the interior landscapes of the ego with Christopher Heuertz, author of The Sacred Enneagram and The Enneagram of Belonging, in Enneagram Mapmakers. This podcast addresses challenges like mistyping and disintegration, and explores the Enneagram type of each guest, from Richard Rohr to Russ Hudson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts.

Action & Contemplation

2020 Daily Meditations Theme

What does God ask of us? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. —Micah 6:8

Franciscan Richard Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987 because he saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation. If we pray but don’t act justly, our faith won’t bear fruit. And without contemplation, activists burn out and even well-intended actions can cause more harm than good. In today’s religious, environmental, and political climate our compassionate engagement is urgent and vital.

In this year’s Daily Meditations, Father Richard helps us learn the dance of action and contemplation. Each week builds on previous topics, but you can join at any time! Click the video to learn more about the theme and to find reflections you may have missed.

Click here to learn about contemplative prayer and other forms of meditation. For frequently asked questions—such as what versions of the Bible Father Richard recommends or how to ensure you receive every meditation—please see our email FAQ. Visit cac.org to explore other ways to connect with the Center for Action and Contemplation.

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Inspiration for this week's banner image: Do we know that within each one of us is the unspeakably beautiful beat of the Sacred? Do we know that we can honor that Sacredness in one another and in everything that has being? And do we know that this combination—growing in awareness that we are bearers of Presence, along with a faithful commitment to honor that Presence in one another and the earth—holds the key to transformation in our world? —John Philip Newell