Week of 12/2-7/2024: How to Survive and Live Fully following the Election

December 2, 2024: Cosmology, Spirituality, & the Power of the 4 Paths to Awaken Humanity
One of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas is his observation that experience is not enough for teaching spirituality: One also needs concepts. When Matthew looks at his 55 years of teaching creation spirituality, sharing concepts is a notable piece of the pie. For instance, of course we have “original blessing.” Another concept was the Four Paths. Both of these concepts drew the ire of Cardinal Ratzinger and ultimately led, among other things, to Matthew being silenced. This week, Matthew and cosmologist Brian Swimme begin teaching a 7-week course entitled “The 4 Paths of Creation Spirituality: Embracing Awe, Chaos, Creativity & Transformation With the Universe as Your Guide.“

December 3, 2024: The Prayer to the Four Directions as Taught Me by Sister Jose Hobday
Sister Jose was a Seneca elder, a Franciscan sister, and a faculty member of ICCS at Holy Names College and then the University of Creation Spirituality. Here is an abbreviated form of the prayer to the Four Directions as she taught by Sister Jose. Matthew tells us that we are not to memorize this prayer, but to speak it from the heart. To the spirits and angels of the North, where the fierce storms come from, give us strength and courage. To the East, where the sun rises: Bring light to our hearts and minds. To the South and the midday sun: Bring warmth into our hearts. To the West, where the sun sets: Teach us to appreciate the silence and darkness of the night. Father Sky: Give us long vision, like the Eagle. Mother Earth: May we be ever grateful for you and may we treat you with respect. Placing hands on the Heart: Spirits and angels of the six directions, gather in our hearts that we may be filled with love and gratitude. Aho. Amen.

December 4, 2024: How We Fall in Love with the World—in Spite of History
Sister Jose Hobday and Brian Swimme help us remember that both science and indigenous wisdom can assist us in bringing Spirit alive in times of crisis. Meanwhile, psychologist Otto Rank declares that an ailing democracy cannot be redeemed by more democracy but by more “irrationality” and that “the epitome of the irrational is creation itself.” It is in us all to be mystics, lovers, birthers. This is beyond the rational. And it helps to heal us all. Ritual is also important. They draw forth the deep gratitude that is so needed in the bigger picture of things. We are urged to give thanks for the gifts of life. Poet Derek Walcott, on receiving the Nobel prize for poetry in 1972, declared: “The fate of poetry is to fall in love with the world in spite of history.” 

December 5, 2024: On the One-Month Anniversary of Trump’s Return
Today marks one month since Americans voted to return Trump to the White House.  For Matthew and for many of us, it has been a time of processing grief and trying to figure out how to live with a different version of American than we were expecting. Many lessons are to be taken from this election, not least of which is that many democracies are under similar pressure at this time in history. Matthew received a letter from his friend, Jenny Hereth, an accomplished artist and former faculty member. She highly recommends the Bonhoeffer film because she thinks it may help Trump supporters to learn something and be inspired. Matthew sums up by saying: Rather than getting rid of it, we may be called to carry the grief with us while we work all the harder and with opened and expanded imagination. After all, “hope is a verb with the sleeves rolled up.” 

December 6, 2024: Election Follow-Up
One reader responded to yesterday’s DM as follows: Excellent Matthew … hope, courage, faith, fierce revolutionary love, making good trouble, keeping the balance between contemplation and action (Richard Rohr), dancing, singing, hugs, tears, laughter, “this too shall pass”, trepidation, uncertainty, one step at a time, first things first, day by day by day … Other readers, however, are very concerned about economic changes that portend under a Trump presidency. Bruce Boccardy, in Common Dreams, shares his thoughts about the recent election: “The oligarchs were led by Mr. Trump, a charismatic, convicted criminal cult leader” under whom “projectile lying became the new norm.” It’s puzzling why working people voted against their best interests. Boccardy believes it was Trump’s tone that resonated with many: Feeling, anger, resentment, grievance.

December 7, 2024: Notre Dame Rising from the Ashes
This weekend, a fully restored Notre Dame will be open to the public, only five years after the fire that shocked the world. The Cathedral has a new roof and spire and is clean and shiny on the inside. “Like new,” one might say. Surely there is symbolism in this resurrection. The Gothic movement in architecture occurred in the 12th and 13th centuries, along with a rise in the Divine Feminine. Over 80 cathedrals were built to honor “Our Lady” within those hundred years. In contrast to the dark and solid fortresses of years past, within Notre Dame there is light and color and space. Henry Adams, author of Mont-Saint-Michel & Chartres, puts it this way: Society was turning from worship of its military ideal, Saint Michael, to worship of its social ideal, the Virgin.

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Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, December 4, 2024 

Bruce T. Boccardy, “The Democratic Party Reaped What It Sowed,” CommonDreams.org, December 1, 2024.

Harry Litman, “Why I Just Resigned From The Los Angeles Times,” December 5, 2024.

Henry Adams, Mont-Saint-Michel & Chartres

Banner image: Coming together. Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

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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

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them. 
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science.  A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics

Prayer: A Radical Response to Life

How do prayer and mysticism relate to the struggle for social and ecological justice? Fox defines prayer as a radical response to life that includes our “Yes” to life (mysticism) and our “No” to forces that combat life (prophecy). How do we define adult prayer? And how—if at all—do prayer and mysticism relate to the struggle for social and ecological justice? One of Matthew Fox’s earliest books, originally published under the title On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Style, Prayer introduces a mystical/prophetic spirituality and a mature conception of how to pray. Called a “classic” when it first appeared, it lays out the difference between the creation spirituality tradition and the fall/redemption tradition that has so dominated Western theology since Augustine. A practical and theoretical book, it lays the groundwork for Fox’s later works. “One of the finest books I have read on contemporary spirituality.” – Rabbi Sholom A. Singer