Much of the media coverage of our church highlights perceived fear of “disorder”…Here, those who have learned from Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr talk about how disorder is a fundamental part of the process. Disorder presents an invitation to grow and a cross best not avoided without incurring worse. How can we help our church and clerics face their fear of disorder and the cross, fundamental to growth and change? Please share your insight!
…https://www.convergemedia.org/order-disorder-reorder/
Regardless of the size of the disorder, its pain sets in like an ominous gray cloud as we experience loss, confusion, or even depression.
Society teaches us to distract ourselves or numb our pain. According to the blur of television and magazine ads, there’s always a pill, a car, a video-game, or some glory-halleluiah seminar that instantly will take away our pain.
But just as seeds have to push through the pod, grind through the crusty ground, and reach for the sun to grow, we too must pass through and push beyond the suffering towards the Light to experience inner growth.
If we resist the disorder of suffering, if we try to blot it out or numb it, we stay stuck. We don’t grow.
But if, as St. Ignatius tells us, we gently push against the desolation of disorder by seeking deeper wisdom and connection with God and our inner selves, we find the transition—while still painful—often leads to a life-giving reorder of our lives.
Ask yourself occasionally: what part of life’s cycle am I in? If order, continue on your path of growth.
If disorder, don’t run from it. Embrace it as an invitation to grow. Find your Garden of Gethsemane, and in the solitude ask God to lead you through the transition.
Once you experience reorder, know it’s the Light that brought you through the darkness—and that it will continue to do so time and time again.