Play, Art, Thawing and Melting of Dogmas and Ice, continued

Yesterday, in response to a candid assessment by Pope Francis about the “suicidal’ conservatism of too many American bishops, whom he recognized as “closed up in a dogmatic box,” I offered a DM with an invitation to play in the sandbox of dogmas.

Dogmas, ideas, as playthings. Toys in a sandbox. Or at the beach. That’s what ideas are. We are to play with ideas—not lock them in a box, but share them playfully, working them over with imagination.

We can use dogma as a springboard to something suggestive and surprising, even as we respect some modest boundaries.

How different history would have been, had European missionaries since 1492 chosen to play with the stories of Jesus, rather than force indigenous peoples into believing them—or else.

I believe that the intellectual life (as distinct from an academic life) is about playing with ideas. Theology too is about playing with ideas. Try them on. See where they might take us. Mix them up with others’ ideas. 

Keep a sense of humor. Laugh at the similarities and likenesses. And also differences.

Eddie Kneebone, an Australian Aborigine, came to our ICCS program with a large duffel bag full of aboriginal paintings. He explained that his people do not put paintings on walls, but on the floor, so all observers can sit around it. Thus, each has different stories to tell about it, because each sees it from a different angle.

When I was a student in Paris, I got a job chaperoning 72 American college students on a trip to Russia. One event was a party of Russian and American college students. It was 1969, and the air in the gymnasium where we gathered was filled with suspicion and coldness from those Cold War days. All the Russians gathered at one end of the room and Americans at the other. Cold. Ice. 

It was the worst party I had ever attended—until someone on the Russian side struck up a song and the other Russians joined in. Then we on the American side struck up “Leaving On a Jet Plane” which was new at the time. 

Then the Russian side started dancing a Russian dance; then our side danced. Everything thawed. The dogmas we had learned about each other melted. All came together and danced. 

Never underestimate the power of art. 

All art begins with play.

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest, p. 94.

See also Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet.

And Fox, Whee! We, wee All the Way Home: A Guide To Sensual, Prophetic Spirituality.

And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality, pp. 178-250.

Banner Image: Sandhill Cranes on melting ice in the San Luis Valley, Colorado. Photo by the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Wikimedia Commons. 

Queries for Contemplation

What memories and experiences are triggered in you by these stories of the power of play? Do you agree that play leads to creativity that in turn leads to breakthroughs?

Recommended Reading

Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest (Revised/Updated Edition)

Matthew Fox’s stirring autobiography, Confessions, reveals his personal, intellectual, and spiritual journey from altar boy, to Dominican priest, to his eventual break with the Vatican. Five new chapters in this revised and updated edition bring added perspective in light of the author’s continued journey, and his reflections on the current changes taking place in church, society and the environment.
“The unfolding story of this irrepressible spiritual revolutionary enlivens the mind and emboldens the heart — must reading for anyone interested in courage, creativity, and the future of religion.”
—Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self

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

Whee! We, Wee All the Way Home: A Guide to Sensual Prophetic Spirituality

Years ahead of its time when first published in 1976, this book is still bold and relevant today. Perfect for anyone who thinks mysticism needs to get out of the head and into the body. Matthew Fox begins the Preface to this book by stating, “This is a practical book about waking up and returning to a biblical, justice-oriented spirituality. Such a spirituality is a way of passion that leads to compassion. Such a way is necessarily one of coming to our senses in every meaning of that phrase.” One of Matthew Fox’s earliest books, this title explores the importance of ecstasy in the spiritual life. Fox considers the distinction between “natural” ecstasies (including nature, sex, friendship, music, art) and “tactical” ecstasies (like meditation, fasting, chanting); he goes on to consider that a truly authentic mysticism must be sensuous in its orientation, so to cultivate the maximum amount of ecstasy for the maximum amount of people.

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