The other week I started reading “The Universal Christ” by Fr. Richard Rohr. This is my first time reading Rohr (I know! I’m late to the party) and I’m enjoying it! There was one quote, though, that stopped me in my tracks. He was talking about the limits of certain types of theology, those that he says see salvation as a “private evacuation plan” to Heaven. Then he says about those who hold to that type of theology:

“The current world has largely been taken for granted or ignored , unless it could be exploited for our individual benefit. Why would people with such a belief ever feel at home in Heaven? They didn’t even practice for it! Nor did they ever learn how to feel at home on earth.”

This was definitely my experience of faith growing up, but even beyond that, I think his statement is about much more than just those with a particular type of faith and theology: his idea about practicing is what stopped me in my tracks. I think a lot about how we’re working to make the world better. What are we doing to change things? How are we standing in solidarity with the most marginalized? How are we pushing for things to be different? I think, too, about joy or rest or peace in the midst of that work. But I rarely think about what it means to PRACTICE living in the world I want to live in.

What does this practice look like? How do we acclimate our bodies to this new way of living and being? 

Yes, this is an act of imagination, but it’s also an act of embodiment. It’s not just about thinking how the new world will be, it’s about creating real, tangible moments, right here and now, where we can live as if it were already so. 

How do we practice a world where everyone is at peace? How do we practice a world where everyone is fed? How do we practice a world where there’s enough to go around? How do we practice a world where there is freedom? 

I’m sitting with these questions and I’m going to be trying to find some answers, some adventures, that I can try. My first thought is that this practice, like so many other practices, starts small. It starts with me, my family, my neighborhood. It starts with what I can do with what I already have. 

I just need to start practicing. I hope you’ll join me.