The Underground Stream

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

The Underground Stream

Simone Weil, the marvellous French philosopher, Christian mystic, and political activist, stood on the edge of Christianity her whole life, between Judaism and Christianity, wanting her very life to be a bridge. She loved both of them and couldn’t choose either of them. She believed that the trouble with Christianity was that it had made itself into a separate religion instead of recognizing that the prophetic message of Jesus might just be necessary for all religions. We were not to be in competition with other religions, but rather to be complementary to their message.

I encourage you not to abandon your own mother tradition; that is where your deepest religious consciousness was first formed, and you have to be surrendered and accountable in one concrete place, as even the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa both insist. Otherwise your ego self is always the decider, and you operate as a loner. You must have a home base that holds you accountable for what you say you believe and a concrete community that every day reminds you that you still do not know how to love.

You have to go deep in one place. When you do, you fall into the underground stream that we all share.

Adapted from Richard Rohr’s talk,
“Sacred Silence: Pathway to Compassion,” presented at Festival of Faiths,
Louisville, Kentucky, May 18, 2013

Gateway to Silence:
That all may be one