The hanging of Jesus on the cross represents many things, but Father Richard Rohr, 65, pointed out that not enough in the Christian faith see it as the example we should follow. His visit to the San Quentin Centering Prayer group was to speak on “Men’s Work,” the subject of his book being released in September: “The Naked Now – Learning to See Like the Mystics.” The path to real maturity, Rohr teaches, is through the wounds inflicted upon us.
“There is nothing in this society that forces you to mature,” Rohr said. He points to children dying of cancer as an example, and how they can achieve wisdom beyond their years by the crisis in their lives. The author of over 20 books which he described as “Social Culture Analysis,” Rohr came to SQ on Feb. 09, 2009, to speak with the invited guests and participants of the Monday Night Centering Prayer.
“On every continent, it was assumed that boys did not naturally become men,” Rohr explained. In the past, maturity typically was accomplished by age 19, as where in this era, adolescence goes all the way to 32, he added.
Initiations were the key, and societies around the world held to a universal pattern that the boy was initiated through wounding that was either ritual or literal. “Everything pivoted around what he did with his wound,” said Rohr. “If he didn’t turn the wounds into ‘sacred wounds,’ he walked on in bitterness.”
Many in prison, Rohr pointed out, have failed to take their wounded state and make them into sacred wounds. “It’s all what you do with the wound, and how it teaches you to deal with your pain. ‘Life is suffering,’ is what the Buddha says. If you do not transform your pain, you’ll transmit it to others.”
Rohr also said that the crisis of prison can be where a person starts letting go and starts listening to wisdom. “We come to God by doing it wrong,” he said, adding that the key is in turning our wounds into sacred wounds. “You came to God not by avoiding all failure and woundedness; you go through the wounds.”
“Meditation is not a new thing,” he said. The practice of the Monday night Centering Prayer group is that of quieting the mind to hear the “still small voice” about which the Bible speaks.
The Bible has many references to meditation, but the practice has not become very popular. Asked if that was a “good” thing, Rohr stated, “Perhaps, our society tends to turn such things into fads.”
Rohr is the contemporary of the founder of Centering Prayer, Father Thomas Keating. The practice Father Keating teaches is meant to quiet the busy mind so that we can “hear” God speak to us. Through this we come to see the wounds we hold on to, turning them into sacred wounds from which we can discover real healing.
We all do these things imperfectly, Rohr pointed out. “Even the best things I do are for mixed motives.” But he points to the real message of the Bible, and Who is there: “God does not love you because you’re good,” he said. “He loves you because He is good.”
