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Q&A with Author Richard Rohr
Author Richard Rohr What do you mean by the two halves of life?
The phrase two halves of life was first popularized by Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist. He says that there are two major tasks. In the first half [of life] you've got to find your identity, your significance; you create your ego boundaries, your ego structure, what I call the creating of the container. But that's just to get you started. In the second half of life, once you've created your ego structure, you finally have the courage to ask: What is this all for? What am I supposed to do with this? Is it just to protect it, to promote it, to defend it, or is there some deeper purpose? The search for meaning is the task of the second half of life. (This is not always a chronological matter I've met 11 year-old children in cancer wards who are in the second half of life, and I have met 68 year-old men like me who are still in the first half of life.)
Why is the further journey of the second half of life especially important for people of faith who are seeking a deeper relationship with God?
I think the further journey has to be clarified especially for religious people because for the most part we've pushed off the journey into the next world. Weve made the teaching of Jesus largely into an evacuation plan for the next world so we dont have to take this world seriously, this life, this earth, what's happening right here or now. The further journey has to happen in this world. I wrote the book because I want to say the further journey happens in this world and then you're ready for heaven. You're living in heaven now, you're practicing for heaven and so heaven is not even a big change of venue. It's a continuation of what you've already begun to experience.
What do you mean when you say, we grow by falling down?
You know, when I chose the title of Falling Upward I thought that surely there would be six other books with that title. Believe it or not, there weren't. I thought it was a perfect title because it conveys a sense of paradox. The first part of the title (about falling) isn't about what you expect. In fact, most of our concern in the first half of life is about rising, achieving, accomplishing, performing. I tried deliberately to use a somewhat shocking or controversial phrase, implying that there is a necessary falling that comes into every life. It's not like you have to manufacture or create the falling; it will happen. If you can find grace or freedom in and through that falling, you find that it moves you forward,
