Here’s another way of describing the sacred purpose of life.  To awaken to and to experience what’s already there:  the universal spirit, whom some appropriate and identify as Christ.  To allow that spirit to flow.  To live experience the unknowable subtleties to the fullest.  To allow oneself to be happy.

For Americans and lesser-privileged westerners, there is more.  And more specific.  One must encounter those who would beyond doubt place Richard Rohr in hell. One must develop subtle ways to engage.  One must learn from these engagements and encounters, accidents and incidents.  One must tolerate the committed faith and stubborn emotional intellectual knowing of their condemnation.  One must not antagonize or torment.  One must learn to engage with subtle respect.  One most oppose them with everything one has, drawing upon every reserve and resource, but without becoming or playing the role of enemy.  One must learn subtlety from this experience.  One must learn the art of gentle persuasion and tirelessly practice its nuances. One must hope to educate and thus little by little to dissuade them, to disabuse their delusion, perhaps to bring them to purpose or at least to soften them up a bit for the next incarnation. One must develop patience, one must practice happiness.  The successful one has honed the art of joy.

And in the end, [‘when the love you take is equal to the love you make’], when one has inevitably aroused the ire and the projected hate and intolerance of the emotionally faithful all too many times, one must not despair at the apparent dearth of avail.  For one has tried one’s best.  Sustained, that is the very exemplar of devotion.  The world and its wicked ways has been changed, even if in imperceptible ways.  Be joyful.  It is success.