Week of 9/9-14/2024: Tom Fox, Wisdom & Education

September 9, 2024: My and My Brother’s Story in Education
Matthew intuited many years ago that one cannot teach spirituality using a “European model of education,” i.e. with the rational brain alone. In 1974, because of the success of his first book on spirituality, On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Style (now called Prayer: A Radical Response to Life), Matthew was commissioned by the American Catholic bishops to make a study on education and spirituality. In one school, a twenty-something student reported “we are studying the mystics but not how to be mystics ourselves.” As a result, Matthew realized that there must be a doing element, a practicing element, to spiritual education and art as meditation. And thus was born ICCS, the Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality for 7 years at Mundelein College in Chicago, for 12 years at Holy Names College in Oakland, and for 9 years at the University of Creation Spirituality. Matthew has spent his entire adult life teaching, designing and leading spirituality programs.

September 10, 2024: G. Thomas Fox on edGe-ucation
Matthew’s brother, Tom Fox, steps out of the usual posing of the educational problem in his book, on becoming edGe-ucated: how uncertainty can link the frontiers of expert inquiry to the education of all,* and, in a typically creative way, proposes that the key to education is uncertainty, not certainty.  That the systems we have set up are about passing on what we know (or think we know) about reality, and this ultimately renders learning boring. From a spiritual and mystical point of view, Tom Fox is talking about the Via Negativa and what Meister Eckhart called “unknowing knowledge” and what we might call the power of mystery to allure us. Psychotherapist and Hasidic mystic Estelle Frankel writes about the Via Negativa stunningly in her important book, The Wisdom of Not Knowing: Discovering a Life of Wonder by Embracing Uncertainty.  Matthew thinks she would love his brother’s book—and vice versa.

September 11, 2024: The “Wow” Factor, Science, Learning & Spirituality a la Tom Fox
What Matthew call the Via Positiva and Heschel calls awe, educator Tom Fox calls the “wow” or the “exuberant wows.” Matthew loves that phrase, “exuberant wows,” and says he “will surely be appropriating it in future efforts to name what a mystical experience is.” The Fox brothers surely have common belief systems. Tom Fox said: Combining a scientist’s wonder of nature with a deep respect for human intelligence demonstrates that a scientist’s work is a spiritual quest as well as a scientific one.  If Heschel is correct that “awe is the beginning of wisdom,” we find ourselves on sacred ground when we pay attention to our awe as we study the facts of our universe and begin the journey from knowledge to wisdom. 

September 12, 2024: Some Testimonies To Tom Fox & His Vocation as an Educator
Matthew thanks everyone for their prayers and condolences upon news of the death of his brother, Tom. As it so happened, four days later, Matthew’s other older brother, Nat, also passed. He was an engineer and patented 80 inventions in his lifetime. He left behind a beloved wife and six children and stepchildren. As we continue to celebrate Tom Fox and his work, W. Nikola-Lisa, author of How We Are Smart: A Multicultural Look at the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, says: Fox’s ideas about education based on more than 50 years of experience, are nothing short of earth-shattering. …Fox offers a paradigmatic shift in our thinking, urging us to look more deeply at the nature of knowledge and how we acquire it. The result: a truly revolutionary, as well as much-needed, 21^st century vision of education. Matthew also shares that when he told a friend about Tom’s passing and mentioned that he taught at National Louis University, the friend said that she had attended school there in 1993 and that one exceptional teacher there changed her life. It was, you guessed it, Tom Fox! She said: I loved our long conversations and how he challenged me to think and feel for myself  before advocating for others. He challenged my very way of viewing life and personal purpose.

September 13, 2024: Two Lessons Learned on Wisdom & Growing Older
Wisdom can come from both our elders and the young. (“Out of the mouths of babes….”) One aspect of wisdom is learning about grace in losing. Losing means getting up and trying again, trying harder, evaluating. Ideally when one loses, one learns from the experience. Unfortunately, some elders are not wise. A certain presidential candidate, one of the sorest losers in the world, instead of graciously accepting his loss as candidates have done throughout history, tries to overthrow the government Another thing that happens as we age is facing loss. Death happens. It’s such an inevitable part of life. When we face loss, it’s an opportunity for us to evaluate our own life and to make it count. Let wisdom roll.

September 14, 2024: Wisdom of the Young, Sin vs. Evil, Evil vs. the Sacred
Matthew’s new book, Trump & MAGA as the Anti-Christ, a Handbook for the 2024 Election, is dedicated to “the young leaders of the world.” Matthew means such people as David Hogg, a survivor of the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Then a teenager, Hogg has now co-founded with Kevin Lata a movement called Leaders We Deserve. Speaking again about wisdom, Matthew shares: If there is one thing I learned in writing my major tome on Evil, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, a few years ago, it is this: The opposite of evil is not good; bad is the opposite of good. The opposite of Evil is the Sacred. Our planet is sacred. Democracy is sacred. Anything which threatens either of those two is evil.

* G. Thomas Fox, on becoming edGe-ucated: how uncertainty can link the frontiers of expert inquiry to the education of all. Reykjavik: Bósala Stúdenta, 2024.

Banner image: The Free Church of Reykjavik, where the funeral of Matthew’s brother Tom will be held. Photo by Jaisril on Flickr.

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

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

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

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.