The Radical Perceptual Shift — Part 2

St. Thomas Aquinas said in the thirteenth century: If it is true, then it is from the Holy Spirit. In the thirteenth century, when Christians demonized Muslims even more than they do today, St. Francis told us friars that if we found a page of the Koran, we should kiss and place it on the altar. His Christian truth was not fear-based. He could honor God and holiness anywhere it was found, and not just inside of his own symbol system.

If there is indeed one God of all the earth, then it is this one God who is breaking through in every age and culture, and monotheists should be the first to recognize that truth is one (Ephesians 4:4 — 6) and that God is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). Yet they usually end up fearing and even opposing these ideas, probably because in their own lives their religion has been tribal more than transformative. Perhaps we want to belong to something exclusive, the equivalent of a religious country club, but by that time, of course, our God has become very small and been whittled down to our size. As Rumi said, “There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” 

Richard Rohr
from The Naked Now; Learning to See as the Mystics See
Chapter: But We Have to Make Judgements, Don’t We?

To be continued . . .