Book Review: Falling Upward by Richard Rohr

Introduction

Richard Rohr, a Franciscan Priest, and author, popular with Catholics and Protestants alike, spreads before us, in Falling Upward, a way of looking at true maturity, spiritual maturity, and how it can be embraced or resisted. He divides the span of human life into two halves: the first, the domain of younger men and women attempting to make a mark in the world, and the second half of life as a journey of increasing contentment brought about, ironically, through weakness and failure. Hence ‘falling upward’. The only way up is down.

My context

I’ve had this notion, maybe imaginary, from conversion to Christ onwards that God will bring certain books along at the right time. I would put Falling Upward in that category. It’s not as if I hadn’t heard of Richard Rohr – a friend I hadn’t seen for a few years visited out of the blue a few weeks ago and mentioned Richard Rohr, others in Wales who use the Enneagram to understand how individuals tick, and others over the past ten or so years have recommended Rohr. As often is the case, I’m late to the feast. The nail in the coffin came, as many good things do on my spiritual journey, sharing a pint at a local pub and discussing how the world works with PS, once we’d swapped vital family news, football, travel, and news from the world of work.

In recent weeks I’ve had the growing sense that in some ways I have packed my bags. I’ve written about this in a blog: Postcards from Abram where Abram has set out from Haran for Canaan in response to the call of God. In the early pages of Falling Upward, in fact the opening sentence, I found the same sentiment expressed: ‘A journey into the second half of our own lives awaits us all. Not everyone goes there, even though all of us get older.’

Green Pen

I read some books with a green pen in hand, making notes, ticks, underlining maybe, and placing references to important pages on some white space near the title page. I made 11 references for Falling Upwards, and six of these will form the basis of this review.

xxvi – ‘It is no surprise that…we speak of ‘falling’ in love. I think it is the only way to get there. None would go freely, if we knew ahead of time what love is going to ask of us…great love is always a discovery, a revelation…a falling into ‘something’ much bigger and deeper…beyond us and larger than us’

Rohr doesn’t disclose his own experience of this love, or his lack of it. Inevitably one wonders, since he is a Franciscan priest, and as such has forsworn romantic love. Nevertheless, he writes with understanding on this point, and, of course, the ‘love’ to which he is referring need not be limited to romantic love. His point is that to allow oneself to love another requires ‘faith’ – there are no guarantees; the only thing that is certain is that not taking that leap of faith with others cuts us off from any experience of love, it will always remain out of reach.

P12 ‘Theologically and objectively speaking we are already in union with God’

O dear. This was my first red flag. We have two immense words: theology and objectivity, as near neighbours placed in one sentence, plunged as it were into the magician’s hat, and out comes an extraordinary rabbit – union with God. Rohr, if nothing else, is an entertainer. I wonder what Rohr would make of the following New Testament passages which suggest the opposite: union is possible, and made available through Christ, but not automatically conferred. Like love, to experience it requires a leap of faith:

‘The true light (Christ) gives to every man who comes into the world…He came to His own but His own did not receive Him, but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name’ John 1 v 9-12

‘Remember…you without Christ…having no hope and without God in the world but now In Christ you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ’ Eph 2v11-13

P36 ‘Very few Christians have been taught live both law and freedom at the same time’

This statement fits quite well with his overall observation of the negative effect on children (and therefore our first half of life) if we’re not given at least some structure (or law) to butt up against by, hopefully, loving authority figures such as parents or teachers. This is quite a complex but well-written argument. However, the radical nature of the gospel, once accepted, is that we are ‘not under law but under grace’ Romans 6 v 14. Paul’s letter to the Galatians expands on this even further. As Jesus stated: ‘Freely you have received freely give’. Grace means freely given. It feels like he thinks grace will be insufficient and that a good dose of law, or Jordan Petersen perhaps, is still needed for a Christian to live.

P49 Rohr quotes from Isaiah 38 ‘In the noontime of my life, I was told to depart for the gates of Hades, surely I am deprived of the rest on my years’ The ‘second half of life’ journey is open to those, he is saying, who willing to surrender everything that brought success and illusions of grandeur in the first half, and to embrace the priority of soul over external achievement. It seems a little trite simply to say Christ walked this path perfectly, but He did. All the miracles, crowds, and teaching were put to one side as He entered Jerusalem and the Garden of Gethsemany. He was reduced to: ‘Take this cup from me, nevertheless…not My will but Yours be done’ He was arrested, crucified, died, buried, and descended into hell. And then was raised. This is the hope, Rohr contends, of the second phase of life to be raised by falling upward. An excellent passage.

P86 This quote more or less follows on seamlessly from p49

‘The surrendering of our false-self…is the necessary suffering needed to find the ‘pearl of great price’ that is always hidden inside this lovely but passing shell’

This appeals to my sense of poetry rather than theology. The ‘false-self’ idea presupposes that our ‘true-self’ has always existed potentially inside us. He quotes Zen masters to make the point: ‘the face you had before you were born’. I think of Heather Small’s song with M People ‘You've got to search for the hero inside yourself, search for the secrets you hide, search for the hero inside yourself, until you find the key to your life’

This feels like a contradiction to God’s perspective on the human condition as prophesied by Ezekiel and Jeremiah.

‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes…’ Ez 36 v 26,27

It looks to me as if the pearl of great price has been made available to us through Christ but that we must ‘surrender’ all our hopeless attempts to produce it from within – that is ‘repentance’ – and receive this free gift of heart surgery to remove our hearts of stone and receive a new heart, gratis. (Note to self: order Annie Dillard’s ‘Teaching a stone to talk’ – quoted on p53. That’s the beauty of poetry, in one sentence capturing the essence of a thing by contradicting its reality, welcome to Paradox).

P68 I’ve put this quote out of sequence as the thinking contained in the quote from p86 follows on smoothly from p49.

‘Many Christians even made the cross into a mechanical “substitutionary atonement theory’ to fit into their quid pro quo worldview…’

This was one of Rohr’s least satisfactory passages. In order to tear down ‘substitutionary atonement’ he associates the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ with a world view that proponents of substitutionary sacrifice do not ascribe to, namely a ‘quid pro quo world view’. To brush aside substitutionary atonement may raise one evangelical eyebrow. Sadly the other is also raised when no thought-through alternative is offered in its place. It's one thing for a waiter to remove a bowl of cold soup, but not to return with another steaming away in its place is hardly satisfying. Come on Rohr, nail your atonement colours to the mast.

Favourite sentence

Part of Teiresias’s prophecy to Odysseus: ‘Your oar must become a winnowing shovel…you must fix the oar in the ground’

Conclusions

The acid tests are: (i) did I enjoy reading the book? and (ii) would I recommend it to others?

Despite my real concerns with his theology, yes, I enjoyed the book immensely. Whilst I may disagree over some fundamental theological issues, he is writing in an area of our human experience that is sorely needed. Who else out there is making sense of ‘life’? Shakespeare may have seven phases of life, but the simplicity of Rohr’s ‘two halves of life’ is as instructive as it is appealing. It sheds far more light than heat, provided you are willing to jettison your theological spacesuit and don one made of story-telling poetry. Would I recommend it? Yes. And I’ll need to re-read it at some point. He has a way with words; It’s richly written. You’ll be introduced to various cultures, poets, writers, and philosophers en route that you may not have explored before. Go and buy a copy, especially if you’re beginning to realise that the failures and difficulties you may have experienced in life might just prove to be stepping-stones for the future.