Book Review: Falling Upward by Richard Rohr
A few years back, I would have scoffed at reading a book about the second half of life thinking it was about aging and dying. I’m making some progress because this book spoke to me about how rich and full the second half of life can be when we let go of all the things we built in the first half.
“Falling Upward” is a strange concept, although I have fallen up stairs a few times. Falling up is much better than falling down, there is less force and momentum. In life, we are all falling, one way or another. Entering the second half of life by letting go of the first half helps us to be able “to fall into the good, the true, the beautiful — to fall into God.”
In Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan Catholic priest, provides wisdom and insight about what he calls the two halves of life.
We work during the first half of life to build the things we think will prove we are successful and productive members of society. We are trying to define our significance with what we do, what we have, and who we are with. It’s like looking through a peephole and only being able to see part of the big picture of life. We can get stuck in this way of seeing and doing and never experience the deeper second half of life.
The second half of life is about the work that happens in our hearts. It is learning that our identity and security is not in what we do or have done, who we are with, and what we have, but that our identity is our soul, our absoluteness in God, our true self. When we can start to let go of “me” we can begin to hear the deep voice of God that is full of trust, risk, surrender, soul, destiny, love,” and find our deepest self, our real self, our truth in God. We are able to stop “human doing” and enjoy “human being.”
“We are just here and here holds more than enough”
Rohr elaborates on truths that can be found in the second half of life like discharging the “loyal soldier,” finding home, seeing the big picture, living simply, doing shadow work, experiencing creative tensions, and being full of inner brightness. He says that the second half of life is recognizing that we are “just here, and here holds more than enough.” He goes on to say that letting go of the first half of life allows you to sit “naked” in who you really are. “If we know anything at this stage [the second half of life], we know that we are all in this together and that we are all equally naked underneath our clothes.”
This book contains beautiful metaphors describing human striving and human being, relevant Biblical references, and on-target poetry. I hope you read it.
You were within, but I was without.
You were with me, but I was not with you.
So you called, you shouted, you broke through my deafness,
you flared, blazed and banished my blindness,
you lavished your fragrance, and I gasped.
From St. Augustine's Confessions (Rohr's translation)
February 2024
Rohr. (2023). Falling Upward: a Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, 2nd Edition. Jossey-Bass.