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A conversation

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A Conversation with…
Marianne Williamson

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Marianne Williamson on the phone.  A brief and partial transcript of that conversation follows.  You will see that we look at the spiritual task and challenge through a very similar lens, and I am delighted to open up her wisdom and work to the CAC community and friends.

If you listen to what Marianne Williamson is saying, you will hear many themes that I believe have been undeveloped and undescribed in our Christian tradition.  She has the gift of offering them in fresh and current language to a hungry world.  So many passage that we “externalized” and pushed off into future rewards and punishments, she brings home to the now, to me, to my own internal attitudes and dialogues which too often commit us to internal hellfire, much more than later hellfire.

She is an ideal example of people “outside” our own circle who can see things that we who have been too isolated inside can no longer see.  This is exactly why both the Jewish and the Christian tradition commanded us to welcome the stranger inside, and in this case, we are quite happy to do that.  In fact, spiritually speaking, Marianne is no stranger at all.  We hope you will join us in what will be a most wonderful conference this August!

RR Marianne, we’re very happy that you’re going to be with us this August and we’re so eager to join with someone who shares the same vision that we do.

MW Oh thank you. Well, I look forward to being there.

RR I was most impressed by your Healing the Soul of America

MW Thank you so much.

RR The introduction of that is like the vision of our whole Center here.  We try to do inner work and we try to teach people what I am now calling non-dualistic seeing or contemplation, but to immediately help them to connect it with the social order and the huge social problems we are facing.

MW Right, right… Without which it becomes a narcissistic exercise

RR… narcissism, as you said. Exactly. Yes. And we were so impressed by your work with the Peace Alliance and Project Angel [Food] in Los Angeles

MW Thank you

RR Can you tell us just a little bit about how you see the intersection of action and contemplation.

MW Well you know, A Course in Miracles says that one day you will realize there is nothing outside you. One of the places where religion and physics meet is the realization that the external world is a projection of thought—it’s not as solid as it appears. The material world is a projection of consciousness. So ultimately, if you realize that thought is cause and the material realm is effect, then you realize that the most powerful tool you have for changing the world is changing yourself. And the Course in Miracles says that the greatest power God has given you to change the world is to change your mind about the world. I have realized, when I studied Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King quite a bit, and I was very impacted by Gandhi’s assertion that the end is inherent in the means, that basically angry people cannot bring peace to the planet.  If we harbor violence in our hearts, we are conduits of violence no matter what we do because everything we do is infused with the consciousness with which we do it. I heard you say once something about the operative word being “and.” It’s action AND contemplation. It’s prayer/meditation AND action. If it’s all the personal search but it doesn’t include service, that can become its own kind of narcissistic exercise. But if it’s only what you think of as active service, without the ultimate act of service—which is tending to the garden of your own heart—then you are sometimes, with the best of intentions, just really contributing more of the same, in terms of the fundamental fear-based world in which we live.

RR Marianne, when I founded the center 21 years ago, it was that split that I saw so much that made me found the center. I met so many people on the left, who were equally dualistic or angry, as you say, and I just intuitively sensed “this is not the answer.”

MW I totally agree with you. A smug self-righteous left-winger is no less obnoxious than a smug, self-righteous right-winger.

RR You’ve got it. And you know, coming from the Christian perspective I’ve often said to Christian crowds, “How has the history of Christianity been so preoccupied with changing other people instead of changing ourselves. It seems like it’s a game of smoke and mirrors.

MW Well, not just a game of smoke and mirrors—it’s far worse than that. When you look at how much violence, how much evil, has been perpetrated in the history of the world, by people both Christian and otherwise, who thought that they knew who God was and that it was their job to make sure other people came to see it their way.

RR Oh gosh, we’re on the same page with this. Thank you so much. You know, we are primarily working in the Christian ecumenical world, but we would also like to let Christians and Catholics know that your stuff is mainline – or should be at least.

MW Well, thank you. It’s been hurtful to me personally and damaging professionally…

RR I imagine.

MW …This quote-unquote ‘New Age’ characterization. It’s a caricature.

RR It is a caricature.

MW It’s very damaging professionally because serious thinkers assume you’re not [a serious thinker].

RR Well, I hope we can do whatever we can to be a frontal attack—if that’s the right words—on  that kind of thinking, because I am sure we will get some of that kind of criticism, too. But I don’t believe it.

MW You know that kind of fills the line in Alcoholics Anonymous, ‘contempt prior to investigation.’ I never get those kinds of criticisms from people who have actually read my books and heard me speak. I might get, “she’s not my cup of tea.” But I never get that silliness about, “she’s all crystals and rainbows.” But, I have been at this enough years that I am aware I can’t control what other people think.

RR No we can’t. And when your name has been brought up in question and answer sessions, I what I have said—and this is almost a direct quote—several times I’ve said “I think what Marianne has brought to the fore is many of the neglected and denied and avoided areas of Christianity and when the mainline forgets its own gospel, forgets its own message, the Holy Spirit has to teach people on the side to bring it back to us. And I am not saying that to flatter you. I think that’s what you are doing. SO thank you.

MW Well, thank you. I think that’s the function of A Course in Miracles.

RR I think that’s the heart of the message right there, and is all we probably need to let people know what we’re going to be talking about [at the conference] and that we’re going to give them practices and guidance in ways to do it. The title, as perhaps you know, is “Reclaiming Our Hearts: A World Reborn,” so right there in the title we’ve got this same union between the individual heart and the rebirth of our world.

MW It sounds beautiful.

RR You are doing what we’re talking about, and I think our people are going to be in a wonderful position to hear you and receive what you’re saying.

MW Thank you so much, Richard, I appreciate it.

RR God bless you in your work and keep doing it.

About the Conference Hosts: The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC), located in Albuquerque,New Mexico, was founded in 1987 by Franciscan Father Richard Rohr who saw the need for a training/formation center that would allow spiritually seeking people to balance social action with contemplation, and contemplation with social action. Committed to offering a constructive message of the Gospel that crosses boundaries of religion, ethnicity, social class and gender, the CAC provides numerous programs and resources aimed at offering hope, inspiration and spiritual challenge.