He posits that if the first half of life is about achievement and accomplishment, as well as learning from our mistakes and falls from grace, the passage into maturity (elderhood perhaps) allows us to shed the ego needs of the constructed false self, and embrace the uniqueness of the true self -- the soul -- with all its battle scars as well as beauty. This new personal freedom with its deepening consciousness can place us at odds with the familiar, including institutions (the church perhaps), and even family. We no longer measure ourselves by titles, or public images, roles or our place in the dominant culture. I rather liked this book. And I think I can heartily recommend it to all my friends who are fast approaching "a certain age," as a writer of gently oblique phraseology - like Henry James - might put it. Fr. Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Richard's teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy—practices of contemplation and expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized. Diversity in reading, including reading works by those of different worldviews, is very important to me. I will not rate a book low simply because I disagree with the author. I may one day write a book with which I would today disagree!

Offers a refreshing critique of culture – and sometimes church-based values so often imprisoned in a ‘first life’ sensibility . . . Rohr sees the arc of ageing as bewilderingly complex, shifting, unquantifiable and tragic in the truest sense of the word: the art of dying becomes the crowning glory of human life itself, the only route, it seems, to our eternal home. - Manna Magazine But alas it feel from the sky to the very depths of the underworld. I could not continue with it and stopped at Chapter 6 with 6 more chapters to go. Finally, he identifies Victor Turner as a leader of the male spirituality movement. Victor Turner was not that. Victor Turner was an anthropologist--an expert in ritual process whose work was frequently appropriated by the male spirituality movement, mostly by the Joseph Campbell, mythopoetic crowd. I have nothing against that crowd crediting Victor Turner with some of their basic tenets, but he wasn't some big Male Spirituality Guru. Not a big deal. I just want Rohr to get it right. The above list is not exhaustive. I’ll summarize by saying this: It’s not just that I disagree with the Rohr (which I expect to some degree with any author) it’s that he pretends to write with humility yet comes across constantly with an air of superiority. He says things like, “It is very surprising to me that so many Christians who read the Scriptures do not see this” as he explains that you must leave any religion or system to truly mature since these systems and faiths are too limiting. He tells us that if our view of heaven excludes anyone (i.e. if it isn’t universalism) then it is not heaven. So now Rohr gets to define heaven instead of the Creator of Heaven defining it. He uses the same quotes from the same people and examples from the same stories ad nauseam. Odysseus this and that, Lady Julian “fall…and…recover(y)…both are the mercy of God”, Carl Jung almost every chapter. It’s fine to have a favorite few authors, but he doesn’t just quote them on different topics, he uses the same quote from the same author multiple times.

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The two tasks are as follows. The first is where we establish our primary identity, including a career, personal values, relationships, etc. For such a strong advocate of non-dualistic, "both-and" thinking, Fr. Rohr sure relies heavily on what seems to me to be more dualistic, "either-or" distinctions between "first half" and "second half" people with their respective concerns for their "container" vs. its "contents." There is the "shadow self" and the "true self." While there is some validity in these distinctions, they can also make it too easy to pigeonhole others and put ourselves in a category apart, beyond the understanding of others and the flaws they might expose in our own way of thinking and living. Then there are statements like this: "Either God is for everybody and the divine DNA is somehow in all of the creatures, or this God is not God by any common definition, or even much of a god at all" (p. 109). Really? It's just that simple? Hmm.

So naturally, when Dad appeared one snowy evening soon after to give my wife and me the sad news of her passing, Deep Peace was all I felt. At last! I am a strong believer in the gleanings available to us from the world of psychotherapy, as all Truth is God's Truth, and what we understand of the human experience from this field can richly flesh out principles we know from Scripture. The danger comes when this is reversed, and Christianity is viewed as one of many valid paths to living out the learnings from the psychotherapeutic community. Many people don’t realize that there is a second half to life; they remain in the first half their whole lives. There are many reasons for this, which we’ll get into in the next chapter. But no matter which half you’re in, knowing where you stand is beneficial: that knowledge can help you transition out of the first half or, if you’re in the second, it can be a comfort – a reassurance that you’re exactly where you should be. I'll be honest. This is not a book I can wholeheartedly recommend. While I found a number of useful insights, I thought the "spirituality" on which Rohr grounded these more reflective of a "blend" of Eastern and Western spirituality rather than the Catholic Christianity with which Father Rohr is most closely identified. For some, that may not be a problem, or even is a plus! If you are looking for a spirituality that roots an understanding of development in classic Christianity, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant/Evangelical, that is not this book. Rohr and Morrell have given us a liberating and yet totally orthodox invitation into the life of God. This book is a celebration of the Trinity, not as bad math (1+1+1=3), and not as baffling mystery to avoid, but as the divine movement of love. The Divine Dance is an example of why Rohr has had such a profound influence on so many Christians seeking to balance reason and mystery, action and contemplation, not to mention faith and real life. - Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastor, House for All Sinners and Saints, Author, Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong PeopleWhat is the terminal velocity? As you have seen above, the free-fall acceleration is constant, which means that the gravitational force acting on an object is constant, too. However, the force of air resistance increases with increasing free fall speed. At some point, the two forces become equal in magnitude. According to Newton's first law, at that point, the falling body stops accelerating and moves at a constant speed. This speed is the terminal velocity.

The book is not simplistic. It is I who am cramming the whole thesis into a nutshell for the sake of time and tide – which always changing, wait for no man. The book establishes this idea of the two mountains, though Richard refers to them as the two tasks. This model serves as the basis for the whole book. Thomas Merton, the American monk, pointed out that we may spend our whole life climbing the ladder of success, only to find when we get to the top that our ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”

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Fr. Rohr’s premise is that life is divided into two halves. The first half is spent building a “container” (education, career, family, identify, etc.) for our life. The second half can be the filling of that container with fullness, depth, simplicity leading to the individual becoming an “elder” for those in the first half of life. This “Falling Upward” of the second half of life brings about a wideness of life, the understanding of rules as suggestions for life but they are to be followed only as far as they create connection and relationship. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest who is also an incredibly popular author and speaker. He has been a priest for several decades, and is therefore heavily immersed in spirituality.