Falling Upward: A Spirituality For The Two Halves Of Life Order Printed Copy

Author: Richard Rohr
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Excellent book, full of common sense and wisdom that transcends Christian views. A must read if you are on the path.

- simón temperans (a year ago)

About the Book

"Falling Upward" explores the concept of a two-stage spiritual journey, where the first half of life is focused on building up the ego and establishing an identity, while the second half involves letting go of the ego and opening up to a deeper sense of spirituality. Richard Rohr discusses how challenges and failures can lead to spiritual growth and transformation in the second half of life, ultimately leading to a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment.

Hudson Taylor

"China is not to be won for Christ by quiet, ease-loving men and women … The stamp of men and women we need is such as will put Jesus, China, [and] souls first and foremost in everything and at every time—even life itself must be secondary." In September 1853, a little three-masted clipper slipped quietly out of Liverpool harbor with Hudson Taylor, a gaunt and wild-eyed 21-year-old missionary, aboard. He was headed for a country that was just coming into the Christian West's consciousness; only a few dozen missionaries were stationed there. By the time Taylor died a half-century later, however, China was viewed as the most fertile and challenging of mission fields as thousands volunteered annually to serve there. Radical missionary Taylor was born to James and Amelia Taylor, a Methodist couple fascinated with the Far East who had prayed for their newborn, "Grant that he may work for you in China." Years later, a teenage Hudson experienced a spiritual birth during an intense time of prayer as he lay stretched, as he later put, "before Him with unspeakable awe and unspeakable joy." He spent the next years in frantic preparation, learning the rudiments of medicine, studying Mandarin, and immersing himself ever deeper into the Bible and prayer. His ship arrived in Shanghai, one of five "treaty ports" China had opened to foreigners following its first Opium War with England. Almost immediately Taylor made a radical decision (as least for Protestant missionaries of the day): he decided to dress in Chinese clothes and grow a pigtail (as Chinese men did). His fellow Protestants were either incredulous or critical. Taylor, for his part, was not happy with most missionaries he saw: he believed they were "worldly" and spent too much time with English businessmen and diplomats who needed their services as translators. Instead, Taylor wanted the Christian faith taken to the interior of China. So within months of arriving, and the native language still a challenge, Taylor, along with Joseph Edkins, set off for the interior, setting sail down the Huangpu River distributing Chinese Bibles and tracts. When the Chinese Evangelization Society, which had sponsored Taylor, proved incapable of paying its missionaries in 1857, Taylor resigned and became an independent missionary; trusting God to meet his needs. The same year, he married Maria Dyer, daughter of missionaries stationed in China. He continued to pour himself into his work, and his small church in Ningpo grew to 21 members. But by 1861, he became seriously ill (probably with hepatitis) and was forced to return to England to recover. In England, the restless Taylor continued translating the Bible into Chinese (a work he'd begun in China), studied to become a midwife, and recruited more missionaries. Troubled that people in England seemed to have little interest in China, he wrote China: Its Spiritual Need and Claims. In one passage, he scolded, "Can all the Christians in England sit still with folded arms while these multitudes [in China] are perishing—perishing for lack of knowledge—for lack of that knowledge which England possesses so richly?" Taylor became convinced that a special organization was needed to evangelize the interior of China. He made plans to recruit 24 missionaries: two for each of the 11 unreached inland provinces and two for Mongolia. It was a visionary plan that would have left veteran recruiters breathless: it would increase the number of China missionaries by 25 percent. Taylor himself was wracked with doubt: he worried about sending men and women unprotected into the interior; at the same time, he despaired for the millions of Chinese who were dying without the hope of the gospel. In 1865 he wrote in his diary, "For two or three months, intense conflict … Thought I should lose my mind." A friend invited him to the south coast of England, to Brighton, for a break. And it was there, while walking along the beach, that Taylor's gloom lifted: "There the Lord conquered my unbelief, and I surrendered myself to God for this service. I told him that all responsibility as to the issues and consequences must rest with him; that as his servant it was mine to obey and to follow him." His new mission, which he called the China Inland Mission (CIM), had a number of distinctive features, including this: its missionaries would have no guaranteed salaries nor could they appeal for funds; they would simply trust God to supply their needs; furthermore, its missionaries would adopt Chinese dress and then press the gospel into the China interior. Within a year of his breakthrough, Taylor, his wife and four children, and 16 young missionaries sailed from London to join five others already in China working under Taylor's direction. Strains in the organization Taylor continued to make enormous demands upon himself (he saw more than 200 patients daily when he first returned) and on CIM missionaries, some of whom balked. Lewis Nicol, who accused Taylor of tyranny, had to be dismissed. Some CIM missionaries, in the wake of this and other controversies, left to join other missions, but in 1876, with 52 missionaries, CIM constituted one-fifth of the missionary force in China. Because there continued to be so many Chinese to reach, Taylor instituted another radical policy: he sent unmarried women into the interior, a move criticized by many veterans. But Taylor's boldness knew no bounds. In 1881, he asked God for another 70 missionaries by the close of 1884: he got 76. In late 1886, Taylor prayed for another 100 within a year: by November 1887, he announced 102 candidates had been accepted for service. His leadership style and high ideals created enormous strains between the London and China councils of the CIM. London thought Taylor autocratic; Taylor said he was only doing what he thought was best for the work, and then demanded more commitment from others: "China is not to be won for Christ by quiet, ease-loving men and women," he wrote. "The stamp of men and women we need is such as will put Jesus, China, [and] souls first and foremost in everything and at every time—even life itself must be secondary." Taylor's grueling work pace, both in China and abroad (to England, the United States, and Canada on speaking engagements and to recruit), was carried on despite Taylor's poor health and bouts with depression. In 1900 it became too much, and he had complete physical and mental breakdown. The personal cost of Taylor's vision was high on his family as well: his wife Maria died at age 33, and four of eight of their children died before they reached the age of 10. (Taylor eventually married Jennie Faulding, a CIM missionary.) Between his work ethic and his absolute trust in God (despite never soliciting funds, his CIM grew and prospered), he inspired thousands to forsake the comforts of the West to bring the Christian message to the vast and unknown interior of China. Though mission work in China was interrupted by the communist takeover in 1949, the CIM continues to this day under the name Overseas Missionary Fellowship (International).

if you could see the end - the story god writes in suffering

A strange grief crept upon me as the final Lord of the Rings movie came to an end. An unliterary man at the time, I watched the doors to Middle Earth close. The story would not continue. A sense of silliness accompanied the sadness. Why should a boy, let alone a young man, lament saying goodbye to an imaginary friend whom he knew all along to be imaginary? This is exactly what great stories do to us. Whether captured on screen or between covers of a book, to finally arrive at the end can seem as though palace doors were closing to us. The adventure concludes — with all its dangers, losses, courage, companionship, thrill, and great loves worth living and dying for. They leave us again, to our world. As credits roll, we are made to feel like we are leaving the momentous, the beautiful, the good, and returning to, well, the ordinary. But what if the ache one feels at the conclusion of these tales, the bitter loss in the happily ever after, is not unreality mocking, but Reality inviting? Keep Your Hobbitry What if epic stories cast a spell, not because they are fictional, but because they stir suppressed longings that we just might, in fact, live in such a Story? Perhaps we all hunger to be characters in a grand Story, a heroic tale, a high Romance, a story without end. “He has,” after all, “put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The lines between our favorite stories and our own story in this life may be thinner than we have yet dreamed. J.R.R. Tolkien himself captures this in a letter to his son, Christopher, who was serving in the Air Force during World War II: Well, there you are: a hobbit amongst the Urukhai [a deadly enemy]. Keep your hobbitry in heart, and think that all stories feel like that when you are in them. You are inside a very great story! (183) Do you know yourself to be in a very great story? Do the elves and kings, the lovers and heroes, the characters of your favorite tales have a right to envy you? Until we smile at and embrace the story we find ourselves in, we will not have the hope, the joy, the strength to live to the fullest in this life — and then everlastingly in the next. Designed for Story We are a people of story — delighted by them, taught by them, shaped by them. We starve for meaning. We long for dots to connect. For a golden Thread to run through. Otherwise, we are left in bitter realms of nothingness. “We are a people of story — delighted by them, taught by them, shaped by them.” To reckon with life among us, we search for the Story beyond us. From the beginning, many claimed to do just that. Different prophets from different peoples brought down different explanations from tall mountains to interpret the joys and horrors, hills and valleys, sunrays and shadows of this life. Ancient myths rode to meet ancient desires not so easily filled in hearts hungering for forever. Shared stories made up culture. Shared stories made up religion. Men lived from story and died for story — stories designed to provide answers to life’s biggest questions. And hope needs answers that Story provides. The marketplace is full of stories, of worldviews trying to answer those great questions for us. Andrew Delbanco, in his meditation on hope, identifies that the general narrative that united Americans has shifted from a story about God, to that of nation, to that of self. We have moved from the cross, to the flag, and now landed on the narrow and perilous path of me . Of all people at all times, none has been more driven by story than followers of Christ. Even if an angel came down from heaven with a new story, we would refuse it with disdain (Galatians 1:8). And yet, while we often remain orthodox, despair still emerges when we focus solely on the real sadness in our single sentence called life, and our hearts forget the tale beyond. Hope, however, considers that sentence in the whole Story, a Story written by one who did not spare his own Son. Hope reaches past the groans, for that part of the Story with no more sin, no more suffering, no more separation. Joseph: A Case Study Hope stays attuned to God’s Story, because it withers with forgetting. Take as a test case of someone who didn’t sink in the swamp of self, an Old Testament man of God, Joseph. His life is full of many valleys. Betrayed, assaulted, and sold into slavery, Joseph found himself in Potiphar’s house. After being exalted to Potiphar’s right hand, Joseph is sexually harassed, falsely accused, and sent to prison. After correctly interpreting one of Pharaoh’s servant’s dreams, he is betrayed and forgotten. And then after two more long years in prison, he is exalted to become “a father to Pharaoh” (Genesis 45:8). His human story — full of abuse, betrayal, accusation, and lies — fell purposefully within God’s bigger story, and he knew it . When he reveals his identity to his brothers who sold him, he says to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God . He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.” (Genesis 45:4–8) He and his brothers knew his story. Twice he acknowledges what was obvious to them all: “ You sold me here.” Joseph had not forgotten the nights — the years — in prison away from friends and family, the horror of their closing ears to his pleading as they cast him in the pit, their cruelty to sell him to those who would mistreat and perhaps murder him. The darkness, though past, was still dark. Memories remained. But when he calls them near, he remembers more than just his story as seen from ground level — and this gives power to forgive and love his guilty brothers. He tells them not to be distressed or angry with themselves. Why? “ For God sent me before you to preserve life.” In their selling, God was sending. In their evil, God intended good. In the darkest scene of the play, God was still writing. That Story smothered bitterness and revenge. That Story and its Author allowed him to forgive, bless, and love where a different story would have had him calculate the wrongs, grip firmly the treachery, and use his power to exact revenge. And the Story gave him hope for the future promises of his God, recorded as the radiant triumph of his life in Hebrews 11: “By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones” (Hebrews 11:22). He knew, as those of us who fall asleep in the Lord do as well, that we shall wake in the Promised Land. When Elves Envy Men Although it may not feel like it, we live in a very great story. Have we forgotten? “We, in America, have moved from the cross, to the flag, and now landed on the narrow and perilous path of me.” Our hearts grow accustomed to the extraordinary as it becomes familiar. We lose a sense of where we live when we can drive home without a map. Life no longer invigorates. God’s epic plays out all around us, and he draws us in to play our part, and yet we halfheartedly read our lines or escape into other people’s lives. We are bored. But awake, we live in a great Story. Wild and throbbing with adventure, trying and terrible at parts. Eternity hanging in the balance. A fierce Dragon threatens. Demons surround. Hell gapes. The Light still shines in the darkness. Angels assemble. The Spirit animates. Christians stand clad in armor. The church marches on hades. Judgment hastens. Salvation is ready to be revealed. The True King — whose sandals no other character is worthy to unlatch — has died for sinners and lives forevermore. He is coming. This tale plays out on earth in what we blaspheme and call “ordinary.” With all its details and drudgery, its paying bills and crying babies, its baseball games and rush-hour traffic, an eternal drama plays. One that draws heaven’s attention. Angels ache to leave the theater. You are on the inside of a very great Story — a story to be remembered, cherished, and clung to during the most difficult scenes. Is there any other tale you would rather find was true?