In Falling Upward, Father Richard Rohr – the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation — offers a new paradigm for understanding one of the most profound of life’s mysteries: how our failings can be the foundation for our ongoing spiritual growth. Drawing on the wisdom from time-honored myths, heroic poems, great thinkers, and sacred religious texts, the author explores the two halves of life to show that those who have fallen, failed, or “gone down” are the only ones who understand “up.” We grow spiritually more by doing it wrong than by doing it right.
With rare insight, Rohr takes us on a journey to give us an understanding of how the heartbreaks, disappointments, and first loves of life are actually stepping stones to the spiritual joys that the second half of life has in store for us.
Praise for Falling Upward:
“Falling Upward calls forth the promise within us and frees us to follow it into wider dimensions of our spiritual authenticity. This ‘second half of life’ need not wait till our middle years. It emerges whenever we are ready and able to expand beyond the structures and strictures of our chosen path.“ With Richard Rohr as a guide, …this mystery can become as real and immediate as your hand on the doorknob.”
— Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self
“This is Richard Rohr at his vintage best: prophetic, pastoral, practical. A book I will gratefully share with my children and grandchildren.”
Cynthia Bourgeault, Episcopal priest, retreat leader and author of The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, Centering Prayer, InnerAwakening, and The Wisdom Way of Knowing
Book by Richard Rohr, S.P.
Fr. Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (www.cac.org) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he also serves as Academic Dean of the Living School for Action and Contemplation. Fr. Richard‘s teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy–practices of contemplation and self»emptying, expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized. He is the author of more than 30 books.
