We have been meditating lately on the cosmos and on divinization, and how near we are to the divine every day. The breath we breathe after all, what we call “spirit,” is a divine gift, according to one creation story in Genesis.
Sometimes breath is so mild we hardly notice it—even though it signifies our life force. When a new baby arrives and takes its first breath, we call it a marvel, a miracle, a wonder. And when breath leaves us, we call that reality death.
Sometimes breath is not mild, but loud and pronounced as thunder. One experience for that is called Pentecost. The arrival of Spirit in a public way, things happen, things get shaken up, new languages being spoken, the tower of Babel being erased, things change and get radically transformed.
The Holy Spirit, the same spirit that “hovered over the waters (fireball?) at the beginning of creation,” hovers over us when we create and give birth, according to Thomas Aquinas. Eckhart says the same Holy Spirit that “came over Mary” to render her the mother of Jesus, does the same when we give birth, when we make things and make things happen.
Divinization is everywhere. We just need eyes and hearts to see it. The word cosmogenesis is trying to say exactly that: That the universe, the cosmos, is not just here but is busy making things, bringing things into birth, generating and starting things anew all the time. Genesis can be a daily event.
It is a habit of the universe to be birthing all the time, so as we tune in to the cosmos within and among us, we necessarily become more attuned to our own birthing vocation.
What are we birthing? What joy? What healing? What compassion? What wonder? What do we choose to share? How are we choosing to enter into the divinizing creativity of the universe?
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer on Creation Spirituality, pp, 178-187.
And Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet.
Banner Image: “The Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters:” A storm over the South Pacific ocean. Photo by Fanny Schertzer. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
How do you see divinization and creativity coming together in yourself and in the greater society?
Recommended Reading
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
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
5 thoughts on “Divinization and Creativity ”
How do you see divinization and creativity coming together in yourself and in the greater society?
One particularly striking way to me is how some scientists are willing to explore the possibility for planets and/or stars to be endowed with consciousness.
I am reading “Is the Sun Conscious?” by Rupert Sheldrake and doing my best to understand it. I will share this thought from his conclusion : “we can put our faith in
mechanistic materialism or physicalism.
Panpsychism offers an alternative to this orthodoxy.”
Yes, Matthew, your words are so true in the mystical tradition — “It is a habit of the Universe to be birthing all the time, so as we tune into the Cosmos within and among us, we necessarily become more attuned to our own birthing vocation.”
You’re expressing the elusive mystery of Lovingly Being~Becoming open to the Sacredness of the Eternal Present Moment which Divinizes Us to be transformed with-in Our Source~Co-Creator’s Evolving Diverse LOVING ONENESS….
Divinization…panentheism…is the divine in Morocco’s earthquake
“Divinization” is the revelation of our instinct for growth toward deeper knowledge, love and wisdom, and a profound empathy toward other people. It is the directly revealed unity of everything, in a variety of universal experiences of mystics of all cultures and ages., and the lesson of compassion and inter-connectedness that is learned from those experiences. It was what Jesus taught.
In cognitive science it’s been proven, “use it or lose it.” If you don’t use any part of your brain, that part of your brain will shut off,, e.g., if you don’t cognitively challenge your brain as you get older, you’re more likely to become senile.
Same with our spiritual consciousness. If we just floated in blissful perfection, where nothing ever went wrong, nobody got hurt, and no disturbing changes took place, we would never grow or evolve into empathy, never understand injustice. We’d never have to think about such questions as “whom do I care enough for to help?” or “Should I risk standing up to this dictator, this domestic abuser, this bully?”
Whether you “believe in God” or not, we are all here in this world, facing tragedies and horribly tough choices, and we CAN choose: do we help each other and try to grow into love and wisdom, or do we just give up or scramble to get whatever we can, no matter what?
Maybe God (however you define Him/Her) is a force that pushes us toward learning compassion (Love).
The last part of a comment that I posted for another site this morning. ——
A much truer picture of the Catholic faith today is that the institution itself is living on the inside of the edge and has polarized itself from its center, being Jesus the Christ Himself. In actuality, the Prophets and the truly faithful are living on ‘the inside’, in the center of Christ’s mind and heart. The ‘institution’ of the Catholic church is long overdue for truth and reconciliation as it tries to slowly creep back to the ‘center’ of Spiritual relevance and into the Mystical presence in which it was originally formed. A ‘new birth’, a new resurrection requires a death beforehand of some sort does it not? Watch for it. — BB.