Making Room in One’s Heart for the Universe

In my recent class on Thomas Aquinas, dedicated to the question: “What does it mean to be human?”, I introduced the class with this teaching from an ancient meso-American lineage:  “To be human, one must make room in one’s heart for the universe.”  This surely echoes Aquinas’s view of the world who says, “The greatness of the human person consists in this: That we are capable of the universe.” 

A sense of the universe in our heart expands our horizons and puts our work and business, our politics and economics, and our religion in a larger context than mere human identity.  It puts things in the context of creation itself, that magical inter-relationship of all things that are all part of one another.  “All our relations,” the Lakota pray.

This truth is common to many mystics and mystical tradition around the world.  It is also common to much of post-modern science—the recovery of the ancient mystical teachings about our interdependence.  Consider Kabir from 15^th century India who teaches that inside the human soul are “all seven oceans; and hundreds of millions of stars; and the one who judges jewels.  O, Kabir, the God whom you love is inside.”  This consciousness is a realization that “our soul is the world,” as Meister Eckhart puts it.  Our souls are not in our bodies, but our bodies are in our souls—and our souls are as vast as the universe, as large as our consciousness carries us in order to stretch and to know and to love.    

Consider also these teachings on interdependence from the Christian mystical tradition.  Hildegard of Bingen teaches, “Everything that is in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.”  Meister Eckhart says, “What happens to another, whether it be a joy or a sorrow, happens to me” and again, “all creatures are interdependent.”   

In preparing for my class on this ultimate question—“What does it mean to be human” I realized that in many ways I had written my own answer to that question about ten years previously when I left the University I founded, the University of Creation Spirituality, and began a pilot project to take our proven pedagogy that brings the mystic alive in adults, to inner city teen-agers.  With a local rapper and video artist, Professor Pitt, we began a pilot project to see if an education that incorporated intuition and creativity at its core might excite young learners.  The results were real. 

While 64% of black teenagers at that time were dropping out of high school, 100% of our students said they wanted to stay in school after passing through our program.  Why?  Because they discovered the joy of learning, which joy comes with creativity.  We had them making movies and poetry and rap on whatever topic interested them, BUT they had to draw on a few of the “10 C’s” to create their projects.  What are the 10 C’s?  to be continued

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets, p. 96.

Matthew Fox, The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human

Banner Image: Night sky view from Moena, Italy. Photo by Benjamin Voros on Unsplash.

Queries for Contemplation

How is your soul “in the world?” 

How is the universe inside you?  What difference does that make?

Recommended Reading

Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life

In one of his foundational works, Fox engages with some of history’s greatest mystics, philosophers, and prophets in profound and hard-hitting essays on such varied topics as Eco-Spirituality, AIDS, homosexuality, spiritual feminism, environmental revolution, Native American spirituality, Christian mysticism, Art and Spirituality, Art as Meditation, Interfaith or Deep Ecumenism and more.

The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human

The A.W.E. Project reminds us that awe is the appropriate response to the unfathomable wonder that is creation… A.W.E. is also the acronym for Fox’s proposed style of learning – an approach to balance the three R’s. This approach to learning, eldering, and mentoring is intelligent enough to honor the teachings of the Ancestors, to nurture Wisdom in addition to imparting knowledge, and to Educate through Fox’s 10 C’s. The 10 C’s are the core of the A.W.E. philosophy and process of education, and include: compassion, contemplation, and creativity. The A.W.E. Project does for the vast subject of “learning” what Fox’s Reinvention of Work did for vocation and Original Blessing did for theology. Included in the book is a dvd of the 10 C’s put to 10 video raps created and performed by Professor Pitt.
“An awe-based vision of educational renewal.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.