It’s officially fall, so what better time than now, to “fall upward.” This is the title of a Richard Rohr book I’m reading. I highlighted nearly everything in it. I plan to host a book study to dig further into his words. But for today, here are a few colorful nuggets to ponder:

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Far too many people just keep doing repair work on the container itself and never “throw their nets into the deep” (John 21:6) to bring in the huge catch that awaits them. (page one)

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Unless you build your first house well, you will never leave it. To build your house well is, ironically, to be nudged beyond its doors. (page twenty-three)

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Japanese communities created a communal ritual whereby a soldier was publicly thanked and praised effusively for his service to the people. After this was done at great length, an elder would stand and announce with authority something to this effect: “The war is now over! The community needs you to let go of what has served you and served us well up to now. The community needs you to return as a man, a citizen, and something beyond a soldier.” In our men’s work, we call this process discharging your loyal soldier. Western people are a ritual starved people, and in this are different than most of human history. (page forty-four)

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It has been said that 90 percent of people seem to live 90 percent of their lives on cruise control, which is to be unconscious. (page ninety, ironically)

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The common word for this inner abiding place of the Spirit, which is also a place of longing, has usually been the word soul. We have our soul already–we do not get it by any purification process or by joining any group or from the hands of a bishop. The end is already planted in us at the beginning, and it gnaws away at us until we get there freely and consciously. The most a Bishop or sacrament can do is to “fan (this awareness) into flame” (2 Timothy 1:6), and sometimes it does. But sometimes great love and great suffering are even bigger fans for this much-needed flame. (page ninety-one)