It’s time for our very first Journey Book Club discussion! Can you believe it?
The month of May sure seems to have flown by, which made Richard Rohr’s book an ideal selection for two reasons.
The first is that it encouraged me to practice presence each day. I loved what Rohr said at the end of the book’s preface—”When you can be present, you will know the Real Presence“—and that quote stayed with me as I read each page of the book. In fact, I feel like it offers a perfect summary of what Rohr teaches and how we can learn to “see as the Mystics see.”
The encouragement to remain present was especially significant this month as we rush to finish our basement renovation project so we can rent it out this summer. Many days this past month have been filled with painting, cleaning, assembling, and running errands, and there were many moments when I wished I was doing something else, including spending more time tending to you and this space. But it is only in the present moment that I can encounter God and experience the inner stillness and peace that I longed for, and God taught me that this month in a season where I was only expecting to learn how to assemble numerous pieces of Ikea furniture.
The second reason The Naked Now seemed like an appropriate selection was its structure. I was surprised at first by the short chapters and wasn’t sure if I liked it in the beginning. I loved what Rohr was saying in each chapter and often found myself wanting to go even further. But as the month continued, I learned to love this structure. Whether I had five minutes or fifteen (or on good days, even more), it was a gift to sit down with a cup of coffee and a chapter or two on a complete idea with a summary or takeaway at the end. I have a feeling I’ll return to many chapters on their own on days when I only have a few moments but want to be nourished and called away from dualistic thinking and into the present moment.
To reference every quote underlined and every note written in the margins would have you reading this post the rest of the hour, but some other themes that left an impression on me are the emphasis on wonder, the un-ending process of conversion, Rohr’s exploration on the ego and non-dualistic thinking, and the emphasis on paradox—particularly its role within the Christian tradition.
I loved the definitions of wonder that Rohr listed in chapter six—”standing in disbelief,” “standing in the question itself,” and “standing in awe before something”—and couldn’t help but think of our commitment to journey as pilgrims in everyday life. As seekers drawn to the quest, we’ve got that down, and it was encouraging to hear this way of seeing can lead us further down the contemplative path and into the present moment.
Having grown up in the evangelical church, conversion is a fairly new term to me and while I’ve become more familiar with it over the past few years (pilgrimage invites us into a process of conversion, after all!), Rohr’s highlighting of Lonergan’s research in chapter eleven further expanded the significance process of process of conversion for me. Describing Lonergan’s teaching, Rohr says, “He believed and tried to demonstrate that the process of conversion was itself the great clarifier and was the healing of our own woundedness, neediness, and egocentricity so that true seeing could be more possible….” Reading this reminded me of the practice of spiritual direction and of the role of spiritual director as someone who holds the space for such conversion. It made me feel so blessed to be doing the work of spiritual direction as I participate in this process with my own director and also witness it in my practice with directees.
As for Rohr’s exploration on the ego and non-dualistic thinking throughout the book, I was humbled as I read along and discovered the ways in which I continue to see things in black or white and often miss the presence of the Divine in the in-between. I was first introduced to the power of the ego in reference to spirituality through Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth (future book club selection?), and it is a process of conversion (there it is again!) that I have been going through ever since. It has provided me with new language to begin to discern what is of my true self versus my false self as well as what gets in the way of my desire for God, and I find it especially helpful as I continue to reframe the language of the faith of my past into something more life-giving and nuanced. Or, shall we say more paradoxical?…
I loved how Rohr described Jesus in chapter twenty as “the very template of total paradox,” and continued to outline the many ways in which it was so. “And we made this momentous and cosmic Christ into the private savior of our personal agendas,” he says at the end of the paragraph. If I were him, I would’ve added an exclamation point at the end to highlight the shock of it all! Seeing them all laid out on the page made me excited to return to the Gospels and seek to see Christ not as he has often been portrayed, but instead as the mystics see.
After all, as he says later in the same chapter, mystics are those “who go on interior journeys with God,” and that’s who I want to be.
GO FURTHER…
What about you? What did you think of The Naked Now? What stayed with you? What was new? Is there anything you disagreed with? Let’s continue this inaugural book club discussion in the comments!
NEXT MONTH’S BOOK
The Soul of a Pilgrim by Christine Valters Paintner
Discussion: Wednesday, July 1
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A NOTE FROM ME
PS: The spring reader survey closes at the end of the month, so be sure to take the survey by May 31 so you can download your FREE Packing Essentials for the Intentional Traveler checklist!
I’ll be taking a break from this space throughout the month of June as I go over the results, wrap up some projects, and discern what’s next for A Sacred Journey.
The next time you’ll be hearing from me in this space will be our next book club discussion on Wednesday, July 1 (different from our usual Fridays since I’m taking the month off). Enjoy Christine’s book and the first weeks of summer (or winter for my friends in the Southern Hemisphere), and I’ll see you in July!