“What, then, is the path to holiness? It’s the same as the path to wholeness. And we are never “there” yet. We are always just in the river. Don’t try to push the river or make the river happen; it is already happening, and you cannot stop it. All you can do is recognize it, enjoy it, and ever more fully allow it to carry you. This is the great surprise, and for some a disappointment: this divine flow has very little to do with you.”
“The flow does not have to do with you being perfect. It doesn’t have to do with you being right. Nor is it ever about belonging to the right group. You do not even have to understand it.”
Richard Rohr’s, The Divine Dance, 58.
I love this quote and used it for a communion meditation one Sunday. For me, the quote is freeing because Rohr is saying that no matter who you are, you are in the divine flow. I don’t need to go out and push people into the river. I don’t need to spend time and energy talking about the need for people to get in the river. I don’t need to ask people to “switch” rivers because they are in the “wrong” one. With this freedom, I find that I am also responsible to everyday awaken to the idea that I am in the river. Some days, I just get a glimpse and then move on in my day forgetting the flow exists at all and other days, I feel more aware. There are some days that I am fighting the flow of the river and totally exhausted. Why would I do that? Well, God doesn’t work fast enough or I have a “better idea” or I get excited and Action Amber kicks into overdrive!! Too many very human reasons to list, but then, I remember not to judge myself and just come back to that awareness.
I think that is the job of a minister of any religion….just to bring us back to the awareness and then to help us explore practices that open us to that awareness daily, hourly, moment by moment.
What practice helps you awaken to being In The River?
Amber Mattingly 