Rohr puts his finger on a vital point that turned a light on for me several years ago. I feel his observation can be the basis for our own spiritual inventories.<\/p>\n Think of the church you attend. Do your pastor\u2019s sermons focus week after week on what is wrong with those people \u201cout there\u201d or does your pastor challenge you to look at yourself and move toward greater wisdom and maturity?<\/p>\n Are your Facebook friends\u2013those in the habit of posting updates with religious content\u2013largely casting judgment on others or encouraging others in their journeys onward and upward?<\/p>\n Do your seminary professors look down upon other theological traditions and train you to demolish their systems, or are they leading you toward greater humility along with depth of understanding in preparing you for Christlike leadership in the church?<\/p>\n When you have a minute, a few moments of quiet, take stock of the Christians you hang around with.<\/p>\n Are they religious, as Rohr defines them?<\/p>\n Do they think they have arrived and others are simply in need of correction?<\/p>\n Is the problem always someone else who is not like them?<\/p>\n If your answers is yes, you are not in a healthy Christian community.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s nip something in the bud, shall we. I am not saying that Christians should always agree, never call others into account, or never say someone is just plain wrong. I am talking about whether the dominant message you hear is about what\u2019s wrong with \u201cthem\u201d or whether it is about you and your growth in humble, loving, Christlikeness.<\/p>\n To anticipate another objection: no, focusing on yourself in the\u00a0spiritual\u00a0life is not\u00a0narcissistic. Actually, passing judgment on others because you feel you are right and have little to learn from others is about as\u00a0narcissistic\u00a0as you can get. Focusing on one\u2019s own spiritual journey takes tremendous courage and humility, because what we find deep down in our souls is often quite ugly and unnerving.<\/p>\n This is what Rohr means by the ego wanting to avoid spiritual\u00a0introspection. \u201cEgo,\u201d as Rohr and others use the term, refers to that part of ourselves that wants to project a \u201cself\u201d to the world that appears intact, together, in control, when in fact that self is actually a false self\u2013a self that is superficial, inauthentic, a coping mechanism, a show.<\/p>\n The biblical word for all this is\u00a0hypocrisy, which is the core complaint Jesus had againt the religious leaders of his day, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.<\/p>\n So, look around you. What does your Christian community look like?<\/p>\n Does it nurture the false self, which is sin, or the true self, which is the self that grows once we lay down our false sense of control and submit our selves to a wise and loving God?<\/p>\n Does it present itself to the world as the crowing moment in the history of Christ\u2019s Church, where all others are in need of their\u00a0tutelage, or does it model for you Christlike humility and love?<\/p>\n And when you are done doing that, turn your gaze on yourself. You have to, you know, or this whole exercise is one big\u00a0contradiction.<\/p>\n Are you in the habit of thinking of your own views on theology as the one sure thing in your life that does not have to move and all others as objects to benefit from your insight?<\/p>\n When you come to disagree with others on theological matters, is your first instinct to defend your views because you \u201cknow\u201d the the problem is with \u201cthem?\u201d<\/p>\n Do you think of yourself as on the inside and judge others by how much like you they are?<\/p>\n I have made some hard decision in my life\u2013professionally and ecclesiastically\u2013by asking myself these sorts of questions. I do not want to be around religion. I want to lose my religion.<\/p>\n But I also learned, and not always the easy way, that my own spiritual journey is stalled at the gate if I don\u2019t scrutinize my own ego, if I don\u2019t lose my<\/em> religion.<\/p>\n Losing one\u2019s religion is hard.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peteenns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/REM.jpeg?ssl=1\" "\\"REM\\"")
<\/a>On the spiritual journey, the message is always to you<\/span>. The message is always telling you<\/span> to change. Now, what most religious people do is they use religion to try to change other people<\/span>. It\u2019s always someone else<\/span> that needs changing. No. Stop it. Once and for all. Whatever happens in your life is a message to you. It\u2019s telling you something about you. Oh, the ego wants to avoid that. So we look for something out there to change. Somebody not like me is always the problem. <\/em>(Adapted slightly from a lecture \u201cMen and Grief\u201d by Richard Rohr)<\/p>\n<\/a>Richard Rohr blogs at \u201cUnpacking Paradoxes<\/a>\u201d and is the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation<\/a>. He is the author of many books including, <\/em>Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life<\/a>