“What does it take to bring the healthy mother back to balance with the healthy father in us all?” Just read on to find out what Matthew has to say on the question!
What does it take to bring the healthy mother back to balance with the healthy father in us all? I believe the answer lies in a deep mystical awakening the likes of which the planet has never witnessed before—a mystical awakening that is truly planetary, that draws out the wisdom and the mystic, the player and the justice maker from the wisdom traditions of all religions and cultures.
If we can awaken to authentic mysticism,
then a resurrection of Mother Earth is possible.
The Good News we yearn to hear
and that Mother Earth herself yearns to feel
is that salvation is about solidarity:
solidarity with
God,
neighbor,
and all of God’s creatures.
The idea of a private salvation
is utterly obsolete.
Compassion and justice making
in the creation tradition
can in no way be restricted
to relations among the two-legged ones.
I do not know any dimension
to contemporary spirituality
that concerns me more,
nor do I know any more fundamental test
of authentic mysticism or prophecy
than that of humor and play.
The prophet or social-justice type
who lacks a sense of humor
is dangerous to be around…
The mystic who cannot laugh
is a bogus mystic intent on
using mysticism as a contemplative crutch,
just as a prophet who cannot laugh
is a bogus prophet using ‘peace and justice’
as a new moralism and orthodoxy test.
See Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance, pp. 34, 38, 151
See also Matthew Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life, pp. 97, 211, 211-12
Banner Image: Kayaktivists from the sHellNo! Action Council greeted Shell’s Arctic Destroyer in the Port Angeles. Photo by Backbone Campaign on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
This DM tells us that mysticism and humor are not mutually exclusive. How do you feel a healthy sense of humor helps you on your spiritual journey?
Recommended Reading
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
“This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.
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.
6 thoughts on “A Mystical Planetary Awakening”
“There is a Time to Laugh and a Time to Cry”
We need to understand that we need ‘Mother Earth’ and we are in subjection to Mother Earth. Mother Earth can do very fine without us and has shown that to be so over most of the history of time. What Mother Earth does not like, and rejects gets ‘spit back out’ to us and on us. We do not so much need to save Mother Earth as we need to save ourselves. Mother Earth just reflects and rejects our ignorance and stupidity regardless of the reason. Those who do not treat their home as sacred are thrown out of it, are they not?
We need to bow down to, and love and honour Mother Earth through our actions. Mother Earth forms part of the sacred that is within all of us. To reject the needs of Mother Earth is to reject ourselves, dishonour ourselves and treat ourselves as less than the sacred that we are. And that is no laughing matter, but a time to cry. When we make amends and honour Mother Earth once again with our actions, we can look back and laugh at how ignorant we were for a time. — BB.
Optimism and cheerfulness are spiritual fundamentals. As such, humor can never be far behind.
Our Beloved co-Creator~Source’s SPIRIT of DIVINE LOVE~Wisdom~Truth~Peace~Justice~Healing~Transformation~Creativity~Beauty~Joy~
Compassion~ONENESS… Is ALIVE and PRESENT in our HEARTS within, through, among Us in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….
— Amen
In answer to the question, in the first place, humor in my spirituality helps me remember that I don’t know all the answers, that I’m just a blind girl describing an elephant, just like everyone else! On the other hand, humor in my spirituality helps me appreciate the things I am sure of ~ that I feel better when I’m in Nature, that God loves me and holds me and will never let me go, that friends raise my spirits and teach me new things. Thank you to Dr. Fox and those who help him with this online source of support for my own mystic spirituality.
“I would not exchange the laughter of my heart for the fortunes of the multitudes; nor would I be content with converting my tears, invited by my own agonized self, into calm. It is my fervent hope that my whole life on this earth will ever be tears and laughter.
Tears that purify my heart and reveal to me the secret of life and its mystery. Laughter that brings me closer to my fellow men. Tears with which I join the broken-hearted. Laughter that symbolizes joy over my very existence. I prefer death through happiness a thousandfold, to life in vain and in despair.
An eternal hunger for love and beauty is my desire. Life is… hope, fulfillment, peace, tears and laughter. Life is… farewell and reunion, tears and laughter. Life is passing like clouds over the valleys of sorrow and mountains of happiness, until it meets the breeze of death and returns to its starting place; the endless ocean of love and beauty, which is God.”
From Kahlil Gibran – Tears and Laughter.
Thank you my fellow pilgrims. Amen