The Third Way

“The contemplative stance is the Third Way. We stand in the middle, neither taking the world on from the power position nor denying it for fear of the pain it will bring. We hold the realization, seeing the dark side of reality and the pain of the world, but we hold it until it transforms us, knowing that we are complicit in the evil and also complicit in the holiness. Once we can stand in that third spacious way, neither fighting nor fleeing, we are in the place of grace out of which newness comes. Creativity comes from here, and we can finally do a new thing for the world. When our ego stops getting hooked, when it’s not our agenda, then we can hope ours is the agenda of God. We can stop building our kingdom and become usable in the kingdom of God.”

​— Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs