Richard Rohr Meditation: Struggling with Shadow
The Hebrew prophets are in a category of their own. Within the canonical, sacred scriptures of other world religions we do not find major texts that are largely critical of that very religion. The Hebrew prophets were free to love their tradition and to profoundly criticize it at the same time, which is a very rare art form. In fact, it is their love of its depths that forces them to criticize their own religion.
One of the most common complaints I hear from some Catholics is, “You criticize the Church too much.” But criticizing the Church is just being faithful to the very clear pattern set by the prophets and Jesus (just read Matthew 23). I would not bother criticizing organized Christianity if I did not also love it.
.. The dualistic mind presumes that if you criticize something, you don’t love it. Wise people like the prophets would say the opposite. The Hebrew prophets were radical precisely because they were traditionalists. Institutions prefer loyalists and “company men” to prophets.
.. I have never heard of a church called “Jesus the Prophet” in all the world. We do not like prophets too much.
.. Human consciousness does not emerge at any depth except through struggling with our shadow. It is in facing our conflicts, criticisms, and contradictions that we grow. It is in the struggle with our shadow self, with failure, or with wounding that we break into higher levels of consciousness. People who learn to expose, name, and still thrive inside the contradictions are people I would call prophets.
.. As I reflected after the United States presidential election last fall, it seems we are in need of courageous prophetic teaching at this time. Both parties showed little or no ability to criticize their own duplicitous game of power. I suspect that we get the leaders who mirror what we have become as a nation. They are our shadow self for all to see.
.. There is every indication that the U.S., and much of the world, is in a period of exile now. The mystics would call it a collective “ dark night.”