Father Ron Rolheiser

The theory of relativity tells us that space and time are not what they appear to be. They’re relative, meaning they don’t always function in the same way and they aren’t always experienced in the same way. Time can stand still.

Unless you somehow have a foot outside of your culture, the culture will swallow you whole. Daniel Berrigan wrote that and it’s true too in this sense: Unless you can drink in strength from a source outside yourself, your natural proclivities for paranoia, bitterness, and hatred will invariably swallow you whole.

No community should botch its deaths. Last month a wonderful leader within the faith community in Canada died and it could profit us all to more fully receive his spirit. How do we do that? It can be helpful for us, I believe, to highlight those places where his life, his energy, and his leadership more particularly helped steady us in our faith and helped us to use our own gifts more fully to serve God.

Writing in the first person is always a risk, but the subject matter of this column is best done, I feel, through personal testimony.

The power of a subordinate clause, one nuance within a sentence and everything takes on a different meaning.