have come since 1986 to “learn how to integrate a contemplative lifestyle and compassionate service.”
Saturday’s program at St. Monica Church will be built around three points: 1) Why do men struggle so often with the spiritual? 2) Why do many men reject the inner journey, mistaking it for being soft or weak? 3) There is a need for masculine spirituality…that speaks to a deeper core. In welcoming women to the event, Rohr says: “Patriarchy has no place in…male spiritual development. Women have as much invested in seeing men become more spiritually healthy husbands, fathers, brothers, friends and co-workers.”
The theme running through Rohr’s writing and teaching events is that men “do not appear to be at home in the world of spirituality.” He said one study showed that “80 percent of active church members are women.”
Men need to be re-introduced to the ancient rite of initiation, Rohr says. “Coaches and drill sergeants, smoking and driving, money and merit badges, graduation and girlfriends have become our only mentors and rites of passage,” he has written. “They all have something to teach us, but no one is there to say, ‘You must hear God in this,’ or ‘Your soul is at stake here.’ That is the power of the…transformative space called initiation.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 22, 2005. Read the original PDF.