Reading today I came across the word “metanoia.” After following a few trails on the internet, it became obvious that the meaning of “metanoia” was a matter of deep scholarly debate – a debate which I am not qualified to enter. Still, in reading it seemed that “metanoia” means afterthought, from meta meaning “after” or “beyond” and nous meaning “mind”. It has, it seems, in religious context, generally been translated to “repentance.” As Richard Rohr points out, that translation to “repentance” misses the deeper meaning. Webster defines “metanoia” as a “transformative change of heart” or a “conversion.”
It would be easy to get bogged down in the debate, but my stopping point is something Rohr writes in Everything Belongs:
“We have to see that others don’t see things the way we do. We need to have our fundamental assumptions questioned.”
In other words, I need metanoia. Absent metanoia it becomes easy to simply rest in the assurance that I have things figured out – and I most definitely do not. I most definitely do not.
It occurs to me... 