September 30, 2024: MAGA/Trump Book Finally Landing, and An Invitation
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election is finally due to arrive. Profound apologies to all who were frustrated with the wait. Apparently the color paintings could not be printed on-demand and had to go through a time-consuming regular printing and shipping process. Dennis will be mailing them out to you all ASAP. We are also announcing a free Zoom event on October 3rd during which all attendees can brainstorm ideas on how we can use this new book to help steer the upcoming election in the right direction. This session will also be recorded.
October 1, 2024: The VP Debate & The Scream from Helene
The horrors that Helene unleashed upon U.S. soil were largely fueled by abnormally warm water in the Caribbean. Sadly, thousands of people paid the price for the continual lack of political will for addressing climate change. How much more screaming must Mother Earth do to get our attention? We hope that the moderators at the VP debate will ask the two candidates how they and their running mates plan to address this all-important issue. One presidential candidate has made his thoughts clear. He has said that “Climate change is a hoax,” all while cozying up to the CEOs of fossil fuel companies.
October 2, 2024: The Scream from Helene, cont’d
A shaman whom Matthew respects deeply told him over 20 years ago that the four-leggeds are so worried about humans that they were holding gatherings in which they discussed how they can help us. When Matthew saw this shaman a few years ago, he asked if the four-leggeds were still meeting. The shaman replied yes, but they are no longer talking, they are screaming. When will humans wake up? If we do not address climate change, all other issues will be moot because, like North Carolina residents, we may end up with no homes, no roads, no potable water, and no soil left to farm.
Democracy Now!
October 3, 2024: The Scream from Helene, continued: Water & the Sacred
Lakota teacher and ceremony leader Buck Ghosthorse, said to UCS students one day, “Do you want to know how sacred water is? Go without it for three days. That first sip will remind you how sacred water is.” Today we are learning that it may be months before Asheville, North Carolina and many other towns and cities and farms on the path of Helene will have running water again. Maybe our days or weeks or months without regular water can awaken us to the Sacred, just as Buck said it can. Is it possible that the Scream of Helene can finally wake us up to what is most important and sacred?
October 4, 2024: The Scream from Helene & the Denial of Denial
It is the task of healthy religion to awaken us to the sacred. If hurricanes, wildfires, and drought are caused by climate change, then is not denial of such evil? If we have an entire political party (and certainly one candidate) denying the reality of climate change, thus risking the lives of so many and the destruction of our environment, is this not evil? Is this not the absence of God? As Eckhart puts it, “God is the denial of denial.”
October 5, 2024: Recovering the Sacred: Teilhard, Newell & the Celtic Tradition
Evil is the opposite of the Sacred. How do we recover a sense of the sacred? Celtic scholar Philip Newell said: The Celtic tradition has been saying all along that we cannot contain the sacred. Rather, we are to look for it everywhere, and we are to observe it and be liberators of it in one another and in the earth. Newell also says: We now know too much about the interrelatedness of all life to pretend that well-being can be sought for one part alone and not for the whole, for only one religion, one nation, one species. Finally, Newell says: “Sacredness is the birthright of all that is. It is the grace that comes with existence.”*
If you would like to help the survivors of Helene, these organizations are among the many providing assistance on the ground:
*John Philip Newell, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul: Celtic Wisdom For Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World
Banner image: “Maximum Rainfall Hurricane Helene 2024.” US National Weather Service on Wikimedia Commons.
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.
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
By Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jen Listug
In the midst of global fire, earthquake and flood – as species are going extinct every day and national and global economies totter – the planet doesn’t need another church or religion. What it needs is a new Order, grounded in the Wisdom traditions of both East and West, including science and indigenous. An Order of the Sacred Earth united in one sacred vow: “I promise to be the best lover and defender of the Earth that I can be.”
Co-authored by Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jennifer Berit Listug, with a forward by David Korten, this collection of essays by 21 spiritual visionaries including Brian Swimme, Mirabai Starr, Theodore Richards, and Kristal Parks marks the founding of the diverse and inclusive Order of the Sacred Earth, a community now evolving around the world.
“The Order of the Sacred Earth not only calls us home to our true nature as Earth, but also offers us invaluable guidance and company on the way.” ~~ Joanna Macy, environmental activist and author of Active Hope.
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
