With the help of Howard Thurman and Thomas Aquinas, we are continuing our meditations on the events of January 6, as mirrored in the moving testimony of four police officers testifying to congress and the nation on Tuesday, July 27.
Let us remember that over 140 officers were wounded, one died, and among these officers were women as well as men. The Sacred Masculine is not restricted to men, just as the sacred feminine is not restricted to women.
The question of the healthy masculine is without doubt one of the most pressing questions of our time. We live at the tail end of a reptilian-brain-driven patriarchy with a philosophy of control and domination, distorting what masculinity really means. Hildegard of Bingen actually equates patriarchy and the reptilian brain to the devil himself in her paintings and commentary on them. It is the demonic element to empire building, war mongering, authoritarianism, fear and spreading of fear and, of course, falsehoods. That “Satan is the father of lies” is evident in today’s news in need to invent a new word, “misinformation.”
Yesterday we celebrated the four men, representing 140 other policemen and women who stood up to those who terrorized the capitol and congress and nation on January 6, at great personal cost to themselves both bodily and mentally.
In their brave response, we thank them for demonstrating, at long last, what authentic masculinity is all about. So much pseudo-masculinity fills the air these days (and air waves). We talked about the virtue of magnanimity elucidated so beautifully by Thomas Aquinas, who says that “magnanimity is the expansion of the soul to great things [that] strengthens a person to take on good tasks.” And that “courage strengthens a person against evil.”
Howard Thurman also addresses the sacred masculine and the policemen’s work on January 6 when he reminds us that a surrender to serve the common good carries one beyond our personal agendas to being prophets (he uses the word “martyr”) on behalf of social transformation. One’s generous response to one’s vocation (the Via Creativa leading to the Via Transformativa) leads to greatness or a “miracle” of courage:
The place where the imagination shows its greatest powers as the angelos, the messenger, of God is in the miracle which it creates when one man, standing in his place, is able, while remaining there, to put himself in another man’s place. To send his imagination forth to establish a beachhead in another man’s spirit, and from that vantage point so to blend with the other’s landscape that what he sees and feels is authentic—this is the great adventure in human relations.
Doesn’t this name what transpired on January 6 in the nation’s capitol?
Thurman is defining beautifully the truth of compassion. And here lies salvation, for
…to be to another human being what is needed at the time that the need is most urgent and most acutely felt, this is to participate in the precise act of redemption.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, “Howard Thurman: A Creation-Centered Mystic.” Creation Spirituality, March/April 1991, p. 9.
And from Matthew Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas, pp. 153-156.
Also see Matthew Fox, Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen, plate 20, pp. 132-135.
Banner Image: Metropolitan Police attempt to hold back the insurrectionist mob, January 6, 2021. Photo by BlinkO’Fanaye on Flickr.
Do you recognize an “act of redemption” that brave policemen and women provided on the day of the capitol insurrection? Do you find their courage and magnanimity nurturing your own?
Recommended Reading
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action.
Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book! Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen
An introduction to the life and work of Hildegard of Bingen, Illuminations reveals the life and teachings of one of the greatest female artists and intellectuals of the Western Mystical Tradition. At the age of 42, she began to have visions; these were captured as 36 illuminations–24 of which are recorded in this book along with her commentaries on them.
“If one person deserves credit for the great Hildegard renaissance in our time, it is Matthew Fox.” – Dr Mary Ford-Grabowsky, author of Sacred Voices.
Events
Join Matthew Fox for a thought-provoking 7-week course: Answer the Call for an Uncommon Life Through the Mystical Teachings of St. Hildegard, Tuesdays, 6/15 to 7/27. While the course is finished, recordings of past classes are available. Learn more HERE.
Join us for a Virtual Teach-in with Isa Gucciardi and Matthew Fox, hosted by Rev. Cameron Trimble.
August 13-14, 2021 (Fri-Sat)
Shamanism in Buddhism and Christianity
Session 1: Friday, August 13 at 4pm-6pm PT
Session 2: Saturday, August 14 at 9am-12pm PT
Session 3: Saturday, August 14 at 12:30pm-2:30pm PT
2 thoughts on “Thurman, Aquinas and Capitol Police on the Sacred Masculine”
When I observe this tragic story, from the distance of emotionality, what I see is that both sides believed in the cause of what they were courageously fighting for. Both sides believed that they were protecting and redeeming something they viewed as freedom. One side was awarded with some medals and on the other side some were imprisoned. Yet both sides were deeply wounded in the process, emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually, and both sides now are in need of healing. Ernesto Cardenal, a Catholic priest, and an advocate of liberation theology, wrote in his book Love A Glimpse of Eternity, ” that evil too is an act of imperfect contaminated love.” I’m left than, really questioning what redemption, what freedom really is in relationship to love? I’m left asking myself what I believe and if what I believe in, is just an illusion or a truth… and how to know the difference between the two. Ernesto goes on to say, “what I observe is a love that should have found its full realization in self-giving, now floundering in the confusion and torment of negation. The conflicts that beset our world are not caused by the absence of love, but by a love that no longer recognizes itself, a love that has become disloyal to its own reality and true nature. Cruelty is misdirected love, and hate is frustrated love.” Perhaps the love, freedom and redemption that all parties are seeking, is not to be found in man made institutions or any other thing outside of ourselves, but rather is found from within ourselves, where the essence and presence of the Holy Spirit of love resides. Perhaps in really connecting and communing with this inner reality, we will find that which we seek, through contemplating and intuiting the wisdom and truth of Divine Love, already there to be accessed, acknowledged and responded to from within. Perhaps Ernesto’s insight of our having to “accept the conflicts and contradictions that lead to the death of love in order to be able to live the life of love,” is a necessary revolutionary wilderness that we need to move through, that eventually leads all to arriving into the promised land of a newer and truer reality in which all of this dualistic and paradoxal illusion disappears and what remains is the true reality and nature of Divine Love itself.
Jeanette, what you say is absolutely true in saying: “both sides believed in the cause of what they were courageously fighting for. Both sides believed that they were protecting and redeeming something they viewed as freedom. One side was awarded with some medals and on the other side some were imprisoned. Yet both sides were deeply wounded in the process, emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually, and both sides now are in need of healing.”
But in asking the question: “I’m left then, really questioning what redemption, what freedom really is in relationship to love? I’m left asking myself what I believe and if what I believe in, is just an illusion or a truth…” In reality, my answer to this question–which is very complex–I feel comfortable answering you by simply saying saying: “Redemption and freedom are part of what it means to love, and if your comment is any indication of who you are as a person, I think I can safely say that you are not believing in an illusion.”