Yesterday we celebrated the vastness and the creativity that resides within us all where, Eckhart insists, “God is creating the whole universe right now.” Eckhart next poses this important question while telling us where to find the truth within us: “Why don’t you notice anything of this? Because you are not at home there.”
How do we learn to be at home there? It takes some practice. Some deep remembering. Some silence. Some being-with. Some meditation. Solitude. More silence. And the silence the awe brings with it. Reverence. Stillness.
It also takes elders to remind us how important that inner journey can be. And mentors. And teachers who have done their journeying inwards and have returned with something to tell us. And psychologists who respect the sacred within.
It also takes artists. That is one way Jennifer Hereth is gifting us with something real today. And many others are attempting, and have attempted the same.
We tap into our depths through silence but also through art and creativity. Our own and others. Music brings us there; and architecture; and poetry; and study; and science. An intellectual life can bring you there. Asking questions, posing them, hunting and gathering for answers from our ancestors, including those who put the Bible together. Scriptures, East and West, can take us deep inside ourselves, and inside our ancestors, and inside our various cultures. Stories and myths of many kinds take us there.
And healthy mystics invite us there—and beyond.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Passion For Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, p. 399.
See also, Matthew Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet. And Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics.
Banner Image: Elder person communing with a bale of New York City turtles in Central Park’s Bethesda Terrance, photo by @brownsvillain.
For a transcript of today’s video teaching, click HERE.
Queries for Contemplation
How do you find yourself at home with the ‘within’ within you? Has it evolved over the years? In what ways?
Recommended Readings
Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in directions that promote love of life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic.
“Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow. Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby Spong, author, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Living in Sin
Upcoming Events
“Wisdom, Grace, Love” – a 3-part online lecture series by Caroline Myss, Andrew Harvey, and Matthew Fox, September 8, 15, and 22, 3:00-4:30 pm Pacific (GMT/UTC-7). Learn more HERE.
5 thoughts on “On Being More at Home with the ‘Within’”
Oh, thank you.
Thank you, Matthew, for this. Your words have me thinking about people who believe there is just “this external life,” nothing before, nothing after–that their life on this planet between their birth and death is all there is. And there are so many of them. It makes me sad to think of what it must be like to live that way, and I have friends who are kind, who are talented, who take stands against war or racism, but who yet have no interior life, no belief in the soul or in God. What comes to mind is one of my favorite lines from a movie–from Hook, where Moira turns to Peter before he travels to Neverland and says “You’re missing it Peter.” It’s as if these people are missing the whole thing.
I agree Michele, a lot of people are “missing it.” I often refer to these people as not having a sense of self-awareness–they just live on the surface and for the present…
Being at home with the within takes some courage and willingness to do shadow work, to learn to love oneself, it seems to me.
Ah yes… shadow work… Thank you for your comment, Sue!