Can the Best of Humanity Please Show Up?

In Saturday’s DM, we cited the founder of World Central Kitchen, chef Jose Andres, whose organization has provided 43 million meals for victims of war in Palestine. 

He appropriately declared that in the crisis going on there, “it is time for the best of Israel to show up.” I couldn’t agree more—but I also want to extend his wisdom further:

In this time of resorting to wars as Putin has done in Ukraine; and Hamas deliberately triggered on October 7; and Israel has launched in retaliation; and Sudan is undergoing, “it is time that the best of humanity show up.”

And for all those countries investing in war by preparing and creating ever new and deadlier weapons including North Korea, China, Russia and the United States, “it is time that the best of humanity show up.”

In the war against Mother Earth being carried on by fossil fuel corporations who have covered up the damage fossil fuels are doing to Earth, “it is time that the best of humanity show up.” 

At the Justice department, it is time to sue fossil fuel companies who have known but covered up for decades how fossil fuels are killing the planet, “it is time that the best of humanity show up.”   

(Decades ago, the DOJ sued cigarette manufacturers for covering up and lying about the deaths caused by smoking, rates they knew about. This resulted in far less smoking in the US.) Here too it is important that “the best of humanity show up.”

It is past time that both major parties in America tell the truth about Climate Change and offer imaginative ways to confront the killing of the planet as we know it, the melting of ice, the rising of the seas, forthcoming hurricanes, droughts, floods, loss of agricultural land where humans grow food, extinction of millions of species.  Here too it is important that “the best of humanity show up.”

Renewing education so that the common good can prevail along with common values of survival for all. Education that elicits creativity and courage from the young. Educating for wisdom–not just knowledge alone—so that “the best of humanity can show up.”

Renewing religion by putting spirituality and deep ecumenism first. Here too it is important that “the best of humanity show up.”  

To be continued

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See Matthew Fox, The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human.

See Fox, The Reinvention of Work.

Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion.

Fox: Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

To read a transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.

Banner image: This photo was taken during the Pittsburgh Earth Day Climate Strike, on 4/22/22. Image by Mark Dixon. Wikimedia Commons.

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Queries for Contemplation

In what domains do you yearn for the best of humanity to show up?  How to make that happen and sooner rather than later?

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Recommended Reading

The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human

The A.W.E. Project reminds us that awe is the appropriate response to the unfathomable wonder that is creation… A.W.E. is also the acronym for Fox’s proposed style of learning – an approach to balance the three R’s. This approach to learning, eldering, and mentoring is intelligent enough to honor the teachings of the Ancestors, to nurture Wisdom in addition to imparting knowledge, and to Educate through Fox’s 10 C’s. The 10 C’s are the core of the A.W.E. philosophy and process of education, and include: compassion, contemplation, and creativity. The A.W.E. Project does for the vast subject of “learning” what Fox’s Reinvention of Work did for vocation and Original Blessing did for theology. Included in the book is a dvd of the 10 C’s put to 10 video raps created and performed by Professor Pitt.
“An awe-based vision of educational renewal.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.

The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood For Our Time

Thomas Aquinas said, “To live well is to work well,” and in this bold call for the revitalization of daily work, Fox shares his vision of a world where our personal and professional lives are celebrated in harmony–a world where the self is not sacrificed for a job but is sanctified by authentic “soul work.”
“Fox approaches the level of poetry in describing the reciprocity that must be present between one’s inner and outer work…[A]n important road map to social change.” ~~ National Catholic Reporter

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.