Revaluing Contemplative Disposition
Recently, I have been listening to Fr. Richard Rohr, a contemporary Franciscan friar and spiritual writer which sparks my interest especially with regards to prayer and ways of thinking. Rohr insists that the way we see determines what we are able to see. He repeatedly brings up his teaching on non-dual thinking, a way of perceiving reality that refuses to reduce everything to two opposing camps. Dualistic thinking, the habit of sorting life into good or bad, right or wrong, sacred or secular, insider or outsider, is useful for basic survival and for making quick judgments, but Rohr argues that it was never meant to be the final word on how we understand reality. When it becomes our default lens, it creates a barrier to what is truly essential. It narrows the vast range of human possibility into a small set of boxes and cuts off the many other ways a person can grow and be understood. Non-dual thinking does not abandon discernment but it holds it ...
