We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time. —T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets  In the Everything Belongs podcast, Father Richard speaks about the spiritual path that winds both away from and toward one’s true home:   The first going out from home we can say is the creation of the ego. While this is a necessary creating, it is also the creating of a separation. It’s taking myself as central. We probably need to do that, at least until we reach middle age. But then we need to allow what ..read more

Letting go into God is coming home to our true selves. —Ilia Delio, Oneing, Fall 2023  Richard Rohr considers how the spiritual journey of “homecoming” requires holding the tension between the past and future:   The archetypal idea of ‘‘home’’ points in two directions at once. It points backward toward an original hint and taste for union, starting in our mother’s body. We all came from some kind of home—at times, bad ones—that always plants the foundational seed of a possible and ideal paradise. It also points forward, urging us toward the realization that this hint and taste of un ..read more

Sunday  Jesus was entirely single-hearted. His life was all about doing the will of the One who sent him, the One he loved above all. To Jesus, it was that simple.   —Richard Rohr   Monday Only through simplicity can we find deep contentment instead of perpetually striving and living unsatisfied.   —Richard Rohr   Tuesday  When adopted with a whole heart and for a lifetime, simplicity leads to an often striking tranquility.   —Paula Huston  Wednesday  When we agree to live simply, we put ourselves outside of others’ ability to b ..read more

Episcopal priest and spiritual director Margaret Guenther (1929–2016) reflects upon the challenge of “true” simplicity:   Simplicity is not one of the cardinal virtues, but perhaps it should be. The old Shaker gift-song tells us that “When true Simplicity is gained / To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed. / To turn, turn will be our delight, / ’Till by turning, turning we come ’round right! [1]  This is scarcely a new or radical idea for Christians. Jesus teaches that we should avoid distracting encumbrances: the disciples are sent out without so much as a backpack. They are ..read more

Richard considers Francis and Clare of Assisi models of the liberation and joy of letting go.   When Francis said, after kissing the leper, “I left the world,” he was saying that he was giving up on the usual payoffs, constraints, and rewards of business-as-usual and was choosing to live in the largest kingdom of all. To pray and actually mean “thy kingdom come,” we must also be able to say, “my kingdoms go.” At best, most Christians split their loyalties between God and Caesar, but Francis and Clare did not. Their first citizenship was always, and in every case, elsewhere, which pa ..read more

Franciscan sister José Hobday encourages us to live simply, instead of simply thinking about it:  Some folks admire simple living. They tell me they want to simplify their lives. They would love to unclutter. They would love to walk freely. But they really don’t want to do it because they don’t do it. To live simply, we must take the actual steps. We must physically clear out the excess, you must take steps to prevent accumulation. We can’t do it in our heads. Simplicity is not just an idea.   That means it walks around our home with us. It gets in our car and goes to work with ..read more

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. —Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching  Father Richard names the tension created by gospel teachings on simplicity and cultural expectations of abundance:   Most of us have grown up with a capitalist worldview which makes a virtue and goal out of accumulation, consumption, and collecting. It has taught us to assume, quite falsely, that more is better. It’s hard for us to recognize this unsustainable and unhappy trap because it’s the only game in town. When parents perform multiple duties all day and into the night, that’s the ..read more

My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. —John 4:34  I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me. —John 5:30  My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will. —Matthew 26:39  Richard Rohr finds a model of simplicity in Jesus’ single-mindedness and purity of heart.   When we read the above statements, it’s quite clear that Jesus was entirely single-hearted. His life was all about doing the wil ..read more

Sunday Daily cosmic events in the sky and on the earth are the Reality above our heads and beneath our feet every minute of our lives: a continuous sacrament, signs of God’s universal presence in all things.  —Richard Rohr   Monday  When we visit and revisit the wild places that are special to us, experiences of transcendence are waiting for us there.  —Tony Jones   Tuesday  The desert is the homeland of my heart. My spiritual path is cultivating a heart as spacious as the desert: wide open to every direction of the compass, wide open to every creature ..read more

Father Richard describes Francis of Assisi’s early days of ministry and how he related to nature:    Francis sets out on the road, excited because he knows his vocation is to be a contemplative, spending time in nature in solitude and prayer, and to be in active ministry and to preach to people what he’s experienced. Along the way, he sees a tree filled with birds. He approaches the tree and the birds don’t fly away, so he starts talking to them. We have several accounts of this first sermon which is not to human beings but to animals, to birds. Maybe it’s been romanticized, but the stor ..read more