Each Sunday, we are offering a brief summary of the meditations from the previous week, as a kind of “index” inviting you to return to a previous meditation which may call to you.
Over the past week we have covered a number of topics. We began with an extended appreciation of the wonders of creation, celebrating the extraordinariness of the world and our need to move beyond grief and into prophetic action….and to help our children to experience awe and wonder at the sacredness of the cosmos.
We paused to ground ourselves in the paths of Creation Spirituality through the practice of meditatively walking the labyrinth, then spent two days bearing witness to the rising danger of fascism in the United States through clandestine religio-political action.
We closed the week with a short meditation inspired by the Dalai Lama: what is the identifying characteristic of our particular faith?
DM 8/29/2022: Praising the Earth, Father Sky and the Cosmos. Julian of Norwich celebrates “God (as) the goodness in nature,” charging us “with the quality of reverence and loving awe,” to “turn ourselves with all our might toward the actions” to which we are guided.
DM 8/30/2022: Maria Montessori and Thomas Berry, Birds of a Feather. Maria Montessori and Thomas Berry speak to the needs of adults and children alike to marvel at the sacredness of creation: Montessori: If the idea of the universe be presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him/her admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying.
DM 8/31/2022: Walking the Labyrinth: A Spiritual Practice with the Four Paths. Mary Ann Wamhoff integrates the practice of walking the labyrinth with the vias positiva, negativa, creativa and transformativa through the steps of connecting, releasing, receiving, and returning.
DM 9/1/2022: Opus Dei and American Fascism Strike It Rich. Stepping into the prophetic work of the Via Transformativa, we considered the implications of a $1.6 billion-dollar donation to the Marble Freedom Trust, headed by Leonard Leo, Opus Dei operative who arranged the appointment of six conservative Supreme Court justices.
DM 9/2/2022: American Fascism on the March: Looking further at the $1.6 billion-dollar donation to the Marble Freedom Trust, we considered the potential impact of such money in the hands of a man who has demonstrated his commitment to overthrow the impartiality of the judiciary and is already funding organizations pushing false claims about election fraud and promoting more restrictive voting rules.
DM 9/3/2022: A Short Meditation with the Dalai Lama. Contemplating a story of how the Dalai Lama defines what makes a Buddhist, we explored what is the defining characteristic of our particular faith tradition.
Banner Image: Plasticine labyrinth mold. Photo by potter Peter Shanks on Flickr.
Recommended Reading
Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
Selected with an Introduction by Charles Burack
To encapsulate the life and work of Matthew Fox would be a daunting task for any save his colleague Dr. Charles Burack, who had the full cooperation of his subject. Fox has devoted 50 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship. His more than 40 books, translated into 78 languages, are inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and have awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. Essential Writings begins by exploring the influences on Fox’s life and spirituality, then presents selections from all Fox’s major works in 10 sections.
“The critical insights, the creative connections, the centrality of Matthew Fox’s writings and teaching are second to none for the radical renewal of Christianity.” ~~ Richard Rohr, OFM.
7 thoughts on “Week of 8/28 to 9/2: Honoring Sacred Creation; Warding off Fascism”
My favorite DM last week was on 8/31/2022: Walking the Labyrinth: A Spiritual Practice with the Four Paths. In this meditation we see how Mary Ann Wamhoff integrates the practice of walking the labyrinth with the vias positiva, negativa, creativa and transformativa through the steps of connecting, releasing, receiving, and returning.
Also, I just wanted to point out to our commentors that they can write more and longer comments on our Facebook site: Daily Meditations With Matthew Fox. Hope to see you there too !!!
Oh, and I went to seminary with a Bruce Weaver. I wonder if he is the same one who made the video for Thomas Berry?
Thank you for providing the Facebook site. I have hoped for it for a while. It will not take away from the DM IMO.
Thank, Thank, Thank you Mathew for acting as a conduit bringing to our attention so many before us and among us now who were/are consciousness raisers like yourself. Your DM’s have been so healing for me personally and particularly the summation one you posted this AM lading us to the Youtube of Thomas Berry and the many who continue his words so connected to Earth/Gaia/Ecology.
Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord
The significance, blessing and upside of the Creation Spirituality and its DM “icon of the week,” the labyrinth, is the necessary and refreshing inclusion of the feminine as a coequal part of God, per se, and in the created order. An ancient symbol of wholeness combining the circle and spiral, the labyrinth is a feminine symbol associated with the mother goddess, representing not only women but a variety of things traditionally associated with women, seen in the cycles of nature, fertility, birth, and in mature souls of both genders who successfully integrate yin (female) and yang (male). The downside of CS is that it typically presents the sacred feminine in opposition to and even disdainful minimization of the healthy masculine aspects of God, Scripture, theology, and creation, say, the way any polarity can myopically dismiss its unintegrated counterpart. Hoisted by its own petard, Creation Spirituality’s one-sided view rises no higher in consciousness because it repeats the same error it accuses its unintegrated (patriarchal) counterpart of, leaving the healthy synthesis process incomplete. Truth be told, healthy redemption and creation spirituality views, like healthy science-spirituality views, have their coequal place in clear views of God and creation where all polarities must reconcile, in the liminal space and cosmic consciousness between them it has yet to attain, and must be challenged to strive for.
Joe, Today you write: ” The downside of CS is that it typically presents the sacred feminine in opposition to and even disdainful minimization of the healthy masculine aspects of God, Scripture, theology, and creation, say, the way any polarity can myopically dismiss its unintegrated counterpart. Hoisted by its own petard, Creation Spirituality’s one-sided view rises no higher in consciousness because it repeats the same error it accuses its unintegrated (patriarchal) counterpart of, leaving the healthy synthesis process incomplete.”
What you call the “downside” and the “one-sided” view of Creation Spirituality is a necessary corrective for patriarchal domination since the IRON AGE–are you getting that, for thousands of years women have been denigrated and their accomplishments ignored, they have been barred from the priesthood and so much more !!! I do not buy your position at all !!!
I really enjoyed as well as much appreciated the inclusion of the video clip Creation Spirituality Conversations, with Mathew and Harvey. These are informative and interesting and I hope that the DM team continues to offer these within this context. I do miss however, the opportunity to respond to other people’s comments being only allowed to post one, especially when someone’s comment really speaks to me in ways that I would like to show my appreciation. For myself this was a way of creating deeper connections. I know you offer this through Facebook, however I’m not into this site. This isn’t offered as a criticism, but rather a personal observation of what I’ve experienced. I am grateful for everything that the DM’s do offer freely, and all the creative work that goes into this as well as the opportunity to share and learn with and from others. Blessings, Jeanette.
Today, I finished listening to another one of the 85 Conversations/interviews by Michael Dowd in his website postdoom.com about “climate collapse” and the imminent end of our global industrial civilization. I want to strongly recommend this interview of Dahr Jamail, a very personal and sensitive environmentalist, and his two books:
1) “The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption” (2020).
2) “We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth” with Stan Rushworth (Native American), April 2022.
Review: “A powerful, intimate collection of conversations with Indigenous Americans on the climate crisis and the Earth’s future… They have had to adapt, to persevere, and to be courageous and resourceful in the face of genocide and destruction — and their experience has given them a unique a unique understanding of civilization devastation.”
🔥❤️🌎🙏