Richard Rohr

Spiritual Capitalism
“After an optimistic explosion that we call hope, and an ensuing sense of deep safety, comes an experience of deep rest. It’s the verb, I’m told, that is most used by the mystics of all religions: some kind of “resting in God.” All of our striving and our need to perform, climb, and achieve becomes, on some very real level, unnecessary. The gift, the presence, the fullness is already here, now. I can stop all this overproduction and over-proving of myself. That’s Western and American culture. It’s not the Gospel, and yet we have made the Gospel conform to the meritocracy of most cultures.
One thing that got me into men’s work is that I found that males are especially driven by the performance principle. Most males just cannot believe that we could be respected, admired, received, or loved without some level of achievement. So many of us are performers and overachievers to some degree, and we think that only then will we be lovable or acceptable. Even when we “achieve” something with a good day of “performing,” as I often do myself as a type A personality, it is never enough, because it is inherently self-advancing and therefore self-defeating. We might call it “spiritual capitalism.” ”

Friar Richard Rohr, O.F.M.

Additions…sin
“We are all addicts. Human beings are addictive by nature. Addiction is a modern name and description for what the biblical tradition calls “sin” and the medieval Christians called “passions” or “attachments.”
They both recognized that serious measures, or practices, were needed to break us out of these illusions and entrapments; in fact, the New Testament calls them in some cases “exorcisms!” They knew they were
dealing with non-rational evil or “demons.”
Substance addictions are merely the most visible form of addiction, but actually we are all addicted to our own habitual way of doing anything, our own defenses, and most especially our patterned
way of thinking, or how we process our reality. By definition you can never see or handle what you are addicted to. It is always “hidden” and disguised as something else. As Jesus did with the demon at Gerasa, someone must say, “What is your name?” (Luke 8:30). You cannot heal what you do not first
acknowledge.”

Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
Friar Richard Rohr, O.F.M.