the Divine Dance

This book by Richard Rohr (same author as this gem) is a deep, circular meditation on the Trinity and its mysteries. I honestly don't really know what to say. It's about God. His nature, his ineffable Being, his goodness and eternity and light and givingness-of-life. Rohr manages to blend a thoroughly ecumenical scholarship in simple language through a lens a pragmatic, humanly-livable concepts and frameworks, so that we can start to grasp how God moves and how we can try to join in once we accept the call. This is a marvellous, beautiful book. One thing I will say as a plausible downside is that it doesn't really have much of an apologetic bent - but that's fine, this is a book for believers who want to draw themselves further into the divine dance anyway. If you are looking for ways to share the glorious mysteries of the Trinity with non-Christians in your life, then this book will probably be of use anyway, as it may be so fruitful to your spirit that your come closer in your soul the the heart of the heavenly rhythms and find the things to say or do that will bear appropriate witness anyway. I am somewhat hesitant about marking this in the category of "Christian theology" even though I know it is - but it just feels so messy and casual, like the Holy Spirit has just charged through my lounge with muddy boots and tossed a fishing-rod onto my couch and said "got nothing! gonna check the raccoons have got out of the well, see you in a bit" and stomped straight back out through the back door - what do you even do with that? That's this kind of book. It shows you a glimpse of how big and active God is and invites you to be part of that. It's the kind of book that makes Trinitarian theology not some abstract philosophical exercise but an exhilarating spiritual ride that takes you from Yes Please to Eternity and wherever in-between. I would highly recommend this book to any and all Christian readers.

the Universal Christ

This book by ecumenical thought-leader Richard Rohr is an astounding treasure. It dives into the wholesale glorious mysteries of the biblical gospel, reminding us of the meaning of 'Christ', the freedom of forgiveness, the reality that Creation was God's testimony to us of heavenly truth long before scripture was written, the nature of spirit and incarnation, the sheer uncontainable universality of grace and peace and love...

   I don't have anything particuarly clever to say in reflection on this book. It simply pulled off the boots of my own Christian faith, shook them upside-down to dislodge a few large lumpy pebbles of English-evangelical intellectual cowardice and tribal complacency, then gently eased them back onto my feet as a liberating send-off back to the Jesus I had always known but now saw afresh. It is written accessibly enough for non-theologians, even non-Christians, and has a moral sensibility and wholesome common-good heartiness that I defy you to not find beautiful, challenging, and totally eternally counter-cultural: this is not Rohr's ideas unfolding themself but the very basics in implication of the gospel of Christ crucified and risen. A dazzling pragmatic inclusive truth, that has so long since been contained and constrained by overthinking underliving Christian commentary, the stultification of which Rohr here does a supremely excellent work in decolonizing Christ-consciousness from, yet never descending into partisan critique.

   I am giving this book to my mother and buying another copy to lend out.