Falling Upward

Richard Rohr is a Franciscan Priest and Founding Director of the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico.  In his book ‘Falling Upward’ (2011) Rohr adopts an idea popularised by Jung when referring to life as having ‘two halves’.  His purpose in writing is to help people to understand the different challenges and tasks of the two halves of their lives and to help the Church be better able to support people’s spiritual and pastoral needs.  The younger believer needs to understand that the ‘container’ (of the first half of life) is not all that there is and the more mature needs to be challenged.

The two stages of life are not strictly chronological and involve overlaps, but both are necessary to our journey.  The first involves so much investment of personal energy - establishing identity, home and relationships - that building a secure platform for life can preoccupy and even take over, leaving little time for simply being. However, this building is good and necessary.  Church members want absolute truth claims and clear directions at this time in their lives but also feel comfortable with the wider social culture of ‘surviving successfully’.

The second half of life is when people work with the contents of their lives - with ‘the task within the task’.  Rohr’s use of a Biblical backdrop helps us to get his meaning - the second half involves ‘throwing our nets into the deep’ and involves ‘new wine’ and possibly ‘new wine skins’. It can involve a greater capacity to hold sadness and anxiety, a greater acceptance of oneself and others, a time of being not doing and freedom from ‘dualistic thinking’.  It can be generative (adopting Erikson’s phrase) when life for others and following generations can abound.  Rohr notices that now is the time when people can ‘lose the world a little and gain their own soul’.

Rohr reminds us that the Bible says 365 times ‘do not be afraid’ and suggests that the time comes to leave home and go on a journey reminiscent of Abraham, Moses and the Greek heroes.  The timing is often prompted by life events beyond our control – challenges of health, relationship and circumstance.  It can involve sacrifice and feel like collapse and descent; we might not want to embark on this difficult journey at all.  However, what can look like falling can largely be experienced as a falling upward and onward into a broader and deeper world.  ‘The way down is the way up’ a pattern visible in mythology and nature.

Rohr’s style is sometimes impressionistic and slippery, and may not suit everyone.  He enjoys paradoxes and his ideas can feel to be pulling in different directions - the transition in life, for example, can’t be forced or chosen …but it can be resisted.  However, his reflections on his own journey and use of writers such a T.S. Eliot, Viktor Frankl and Paula D’Arcy are helpful.  Throughout the book we sense Rohr’s conviction that faith holds us and that ‘falling upward’ can be a fall into a discovery of our true selves and God’s love.

This book raises interesting questions.  Does a time come when our old agendas feel insufficient and does a model of falling upward ring true?  Like with the Prodigal Son, does some sort of necessary suffering feel programmed into our journey and in contradiction to the Western philosophy of progress does ‘doing it wrong’ in fact allow growth?  Rohr excitingly provides a biblical and spiritual context for a discussion of all these areas.

Ruth Peniket