ONLY READ THIS if u r over 40!

I'm so excited about this!  It all makes so much sense that I had to share it.  It's a great book about the spirituality of the "second half of life".    

 Falling Upward by R. Rohr  

In the second half of life we become (hopefully) a person of wisdom.  Wisdom happily lives with mystery, doubt and unknowing.  In such living, the mystery resolves itself.  In the second half of life

·        We return to simplicity
·        Even painful parts and people belong
·        If we’ve forgiven ourselves for falling we can now forgive others
·        We can hold sadness with less anxiety (St. John of the Cross’ “luminous darkness”)
·        Our superiority complex is seen as ego based and we learn to ignore it
·        Most attacks on evil, we learn, just produce another kind of evil and inflate our self-image
·        In the second half of life we influence events, work for change, quietly persuade, change ourselves, pray and forgive
·        This half of life is more about the 8 Beatitudes than about the 10 Commandments
·        Fewer words are needed
·        Life is more participatory than assertive because God has taken care of things
·        We no longer need to collect goods because it’s time to give back
·        We are now more than ever before in a position to change people but we don’t need to.

As St. Augustine put it in his Confessions,

“You were within, but I was without.  You were with me, but I was not with you.   So you called, you shouted, you broke through my deafness, you flared, blazed and banished my blindness, you lavished your fragrance and I gasped.”

This shining person is the goal of humanity and the delight of God.

Falling Upward by R. Rohr (Ch 10)