Love in a Time of Exile

Fr. Richard Rohr
Loving in a Time of Exile

Sunday
In our ugly and injurious present political climate, it’s become all too easy to justify fear-filled and hateful thoughts, words, and actions, often in defense against the “other” side.
—Richard Rohr

Monday
True spiritual action (as opposed to reaction) demands our own ongoing transformation and a voluntary “exile,” choosing to be where the pain is, as Jesus exemplified in his great self-emptying.
—Richard Rohr

Tuesday
We can learn much from Benedict of Nursia. During societal disorder and crushing need, how did he sustain both his own and communal peace and compassionate activity?
—Carmen Acevedo Butcher

Wednesday
We have much to learn from our ancestors, from their stories of trauma and from their loving protest of resilience.  
—Barbara Otero-López

Thursday
You and I are placed in this world of hatred, violence, anger, injustice, and oppression to help God transform it, transfigure it, and change it so that there will be compassion, laughter, joy, peace, reconciliation, fellowship, friendship, togetherness, and family. We are here to bring others out of exile.
—Michael Battle

Friday
Sincerely religious people, trained in forgiveness, exodus, exile, and crucifixion, should be the readiest and most prepared for this full journey into unconditional love, but up until now that has only been the case in a small remnant of every group.
—Richard Rohr

Week Nineteen Practice
Loving Our Exiled Parts

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem “Letter to the Parts of Me I Have Tried to Exile” expresses a healing journey of welcoming all aspects of ourselves:

I’m sorry. I thought banishing you
was the way to become better,
more perfect, more good, more free.

The irony: I thought if I cut you off
and cast you out, if I built the walls
high enough, then the parts left would be
more whole. As if the sweet orange
doesn’t need the toughened rind,
the bitter seed. As if the forest
doesn’t need the blue fury of fire.
It didn’t work, did it, the exile?

You were always here, jangling
the hinges, banging at the door,
whispering through the cracks.
Left to myself, I wouldn’t have known
to take down the walls,
nor would I have had the strength to do so.

That act was grace disguised as disaster.
But now that the walls are rubble,
it is also grace that teaches me to want
to embrace you, grace that guides me
to be gentle, even with the part of me
that would still try to exile any other part.
It is grace that invites me
to name all parts beloved.

How honest it all is. How human.
I promise to keep learning how
to know you as my own, to practice
opening to what at first feels unwanted,
meet it with understanding,
trust all belongs, welcome you home.