Falling Upward (Richard Rohr): I continue to struggle in my spiritual wilderness and a lovely friend lent me this book (“A spirituality for the two halves of life”) for reflection. Rohr is clearly a very intelligent, wise man (he’s a Franciscan priest) and his writings are full of astute insights… and many of my friends find him a huge support/encouragement on their own spiritual journeys. Somewhat embarrassingly, I’m afraid, I struggle with his books. I’ve previously read 2 or 3 of them and, each time, have found that they don’t really ‘speak to me’ in the way I’d hoped they would. On the face of it, I thought that this book (focusing on the ‘second half of life’) would provide a helpful roadmap on my own ‘journey’ and, while it did provide useful insights into what he described as the “mature spirituality” of growing old as a Christian, it didn’t tackle the important matter, for me, of ‘self-doubt’ (and, to be fair, the book never pretended that this was its prime objective). I think I probably need to read Brian McLaren’s book “Do I Stay Christian?”!
