Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer; A New Edition of A Lever and a Place to Stand

Now in a new edition, this thought-provoking book by popular author Richard Rohr offers a critique of religion as a system that often creates an alternative, pious world without really challenging oppression, materialism, and sectarianism in our modern world. Religion, he says, without this contemplative stance, is often part of the problem. Drawing from Jesus’ parable of the rich man, Rohr believes that religion can only rediscover itself as a transformational system if it passes through the eye of a needle, if it overcomes its own temptation to power, wealth, and fundamentalism. A true contemplative stance crosses boundaries, is not concerned with who’s in and who’s out. It is not a worthiness competition. In fact, the accessibility of the contemplative awareness to all is, Rohr believes, the key to the Gospel message: The kingdom of heaven is hidden in plain sight. †

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 lived kenosis (self-emptying), expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized.
Fr. Richard is author of numerous books, including Everything Belongs, Adam s Return, The Naked Now, Breathing Under Water, Falling Upward, and Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self.
CAC is home to the Rohr Institute where Fr. Richard is Academic Dean of the Living School for Action and Contemplation. Drawing upon Christianity s place within the Perennial Tradition, the mission of the Rohr Institute is to produce compassionate and powerfully learned individuals who will work for positive change in the world based on awareness of our common union with God and all beings.