Richard Rohr - Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go

Praise for Simplicity

Rohr has a unique ability to present a radical, up-to-date, prophetic call to his listeners while assuring them of Gods all-embracing love. The Mennonite

Once again Rohr presents his prophetic message with authority, sincerity, and strength. Sisters Today

We encounter Rohr at his best, offering insightful comments on a wide variety of issues, from feminism to the mens movement, from the Enneagram to the Twelve Steps. Spiritual Book News

Youll find much here to enrich the daily attempt to live a Christian life. Praying

It will assist those who are struggling to find meaning in personal prayer, but do not know where to turn when their own words fail or cannot speak the deepest desires of their souls. PBF

SIMPLICITY

The Freedom of
Letting Go

Revised and
Updated Edition

Richard Rohr

Translated by
Peter Heinneg

A Crossroad Book

The Crossroad Publishing Company
New York

The Crossroad Publishing Company

www.crossroadpublishing.com

Originally published under the title Von der Freiheit loszulassenLetting Go, translated and introduced by Andreas Ebert Claudius Verlag Munich, 1990

English translation copyright 1991

by The Crossroad Publishing Company

Revised English-language edition copyright 2003

by The Crossroad Publishing Company

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 9780824525439

EPUB ISBN: 9780824520908

MOBI ISBN: 9780824520915

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Printed in the United States of America

For the little ones everywhere,
who hold before the world the secrets
of the ever-coming Christ.

For the family, friars, and friends
who gave me the eyes and heart
to recognize their simple secret.

These are only hints and guesses,

Hints followed by guesses;

And the rest is prayer, observance, discipline,

Thought and action.

The hint half guessed, the gift half understood,

Is Incarnation.

The Dry Salvages, T. S. Eliot

O Lord, dont ever let us move into stone houses.

A poor man in Nairobi

A FTER A LONG ABSENCE Richard Rohr returned to the German-speaking world. His subjects have remained the same as ever and yet there are new tones here. Richard Rohr is discovering more and more the contemplative side of faith, the process of becoming empty and letting go, as Meister Eckhart and the German mystics in particular preached and practiced it. Once again we are taken along on an exciting journey, once again we are challenged not only to rethink things, but to live in a new and different way.

One: It was said of Jesus that he spoke with authority and not like the doctors of the law. For he taught from his soul, from his life and his experience. Also from what he had learned and understood in his meetings with children, women, and men, with the devil, but also with his Father in heaven. When you meet somebody who also teaches with authority, who has something to say, who senses what his audiences current concerns are because they concern himself, then you get the feeling that you already knew what you just heard. Actually there was nothing new. Ive felt that before too; its just that I couldnt put it into words before. We dont feel stupid but like people who already know what we have heard. We have been encouraged to rely on ourselves, to listen to ourselves, and to trust what we hear, sense, and guess there. For we all have within us the real teacher and master. Jesus calls her the Holy Spirit, who will lead us to all truth. This doesnt mean that we dont need one another anymore, but that we can stop looking for the master and hanging on the lips of a teacher. That may still be necessary when were children, but mature persons heed the teacher in their hearts.

Nevertheless teachers have been given to us who can strengthen us with their words and enable us to hear with our outer ears what life and the Holy Spirit have long wanted to teach us. Richard Rohrs words have given courage and hope to many people. After hearing Fr. Rohr someone said: This time I didnt leave with the feeling, Now youve got to do this and that too, and then itll be good. I wasnt driven to more achievement, but to more trust: Let go, trust in God, trust in life, and what it teaches you.

Rohr doesnt teach passivity but active trust, action and contemplation, commitment in the world, and the ability to let go in God. One beautiful experience for me was that much of what has become important for me in the last few years what for some is still tarred with the brush of liberation theology, feminism, New Age, or worse was treated by Rohr the Franciscan as old, simple, joyful Franciscan theology, if we may label it theology at all. Perhaps its better to call it the simple joy in God, in Jesus Christ, in creation and creatures that became perceptible in the spirit of Brother Francis. This wasnt the

Two: Filled with Gospel enthusiasm Fr. Rohr challenged his listeners to risk taking a look at the Church that could be but isnt (yet). It was impressive to hear this man, without excuses and digressions, point out and admit that Western Christian bourgeois consumer culture is much closer than the Reign of God. So in this sense our present-day Christianity is frighteningly infected by the viruses of wealth, security, and national egoism. But on the other hand it is possible to remain bound in love to this Church and its tradition. This sort of attitude is often scarcely understood. Anyone who relentlessly unmasks the real existing situation is easily labeled a complainer, a befouler of his own nest. But its precisely the ones who poke a critical nose into things who have kept alive a special love for their Church or the country they live in. They intrude precisely because its important that their Church or country doesnt go off on any old path. I hope we learn to give more of a welcome to these voices of unpleasant meddling, especially in the Church. They might be prophetic voices.

Richard Rohr paraphrases a saying of Augustine, that many belong to the Church who dont belong to God, but many belong to God who dont belong to the Church. As if this saying had needed an illustration, the following episode occurred: A man, who didnt exactly correspond to our notion of the average churchgoer, quite obviously not pampered by life, with an old-fashioned artificial leg