Falling Upward and the Master Teacher

It has been a little over two months since the 2013 Tapestry Conference and the chance to interact with Father Richard Rohr and Alicia Johnson and the teaching they offered us on the theme: “FALLING UPWARD: Lifelong Formation and Christian Maturity.” Some folks in attendance at the event found Father Rohr’s teaching hard to follow, something that perhaps Ms. Johnson was in part acknowledging by referring to Father Rohr as a “master teacher.” “A master teacher of what-in-the-world-what?,” some folks may have been thinking. As something of a window into Father Rohr’s and Ms. Johnson’s teaching and also as an attempt to explain what is meant by a master teacher (at least as I personally understand it), I offer a few quotes from Father Rohr during his talks and then some words of explanation. The below excerpts from his talks are all connected with Father Rohr’s writing in the book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, which is a guide for how we move from being first half of life to second half of life people, from less mature in our image of and devotion to God to more mature. From Father Rohr (these are not verbatim):

• “The first half of life is about being in control.”
• “In the first half of life a person fights the devil; in the second half of life s/he fights God.”
• “There are a lot of elderly people in America but not a lot of elders.”
• “There are four stages in Hindu life and culture: 1) student; 2) householder; 3) seeker; 4) holy person.”
• “Learn the law really well so you know how to break it properly.”
• “Most organized religion does the first half of life over and over and over again.”
• “We all create the mythologies we need to maintain our own personal salvation projects.”
• “God and grace are found at the depth of everything; evil is found on the surface. Superficiality is the sin of contemporary America.”
• “The experience of death is perfectly calibrated to reveal who we truly are.”
• “What if the Gospel is actually ‘win-win’ rather than ‘win-lose.’ A ‘win-lose’ gospel is bad news not good news.”
• “A fear of God and a fear of death are almost the same thing.”
• “Early stage religion is largely childhood conditioning.”
• “The first half of life requires forms; the second half is formless. If a person can’t laugh at the absurdity of forms and rituals then that is a bad sign.”
• “The second half of life is about giving up control.”
• “The second half of life has much to do with the development of a contemplative mind and way of being in the world. The contemplative mind blooms in a second half of life person.”
• “A person can live in the now only if one has a contemplative mind.”
• “98% of human thought is repetitive and useless—as such most thinking is obsessive. When a person obsesses certain parts of the brain continue to be used over and over again and other parts of the brain begin to die.”
• “If a person begins with ‘no’ it is impossible to get to ‘yes.’ The contemplative mind teaches us to begin with ‘yes.’”

Now, some comments for framing Father Rohr’s teaching at Tapestry. A “master teacher” is a person who “gets it,” that is in the Christian tradition, the end of the Christian life. Put succinctly, the end of the Christian life is growth in love and compassion towards ourselves, God, and others. Everything that a master teacher teaches will be useful for helping us move towards this end; I have found this to be the case even in casual conversations with folks that I would consider to be master teachers, or at the least very wise people. Another notable characteristic of a master teacher is that s/he is more interested in outputs than inputs. Inputs are still important, but what a master teacher understands is there are lots of ways to get to something that is descriptive of a word or phrase, the “res” or real as Father Rohr puts it. As such, all of the inputs that can get to the res are affirmed and encouraged (as long as they do not become a distraction). For instance, there are 100s of ingredients one could use to make the thing we call a pie, and any combination of these, assembled and cooked in the proper fashion, will resemble something that on first glance and taste we would call a “pie.” If the wrong ingredients are used and it looks and tastes more like a cake then it’s actually a cake. Likewise, what Father Rohr was doing for us at the Tapestry Conference was noting and affirming the necessary ingredients to move us from the first half of life to the second. Also, while the ingredients may vary, the process described by each master teacher is quite similar. Different language is used: deny yourself, lose ego, find the true self, become a living sacrifice, ask/seek/knock. Nevertheless, embracing any one of these ways of talking/thinking about the path to the second half of life leads us to some similar spiritual practices: contemplation and service. These are the two primary ways of overcoming our selfish ego. How do we develop a contemplative mind? How do we hardwire our intuition toward service? These are the kinds of questions that the master teacher wants to answer. Now, what does this all mean in our role as ministers of lifelong Christian formation? To put it simply, each and every person with whom we work, even ourselves, is moving from the first to the second half of life. In our own little way we are master teachers—or at the least master facilitators—helping others find their way along their own path. Our challenge and opportunity is to be salt and light for others on the journey. Our modeling resources are the people who have helped others do this before, Father Rohr, Ms. Johnson, and a whole community of saints that have discovered and lit the trail before us. Lyle SmithGraybeal is the youth leader at Saint Brigit Episcopal Church, Frederick, CO, and the president of the Forma Board of Directors.

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