Week of 12/16-21/2024: Advent, the Dark Night, Celebrations of Light, and Patriarchy on Trial

December 16, 2024: Solstice, Hanukkah, Advent — Great Comings & Certain Tensions
Advent means “Coming,” a time of waiting for a great coming. Even before Christians used this time to celebrate the coming of Jesus, indigenous peoples around the world eagerly awaited the turning of the Sun at the Winter Solstice, as evidenced by Stonehenge, Newgrange, and other neolithic ritual spaces. Pope Julius declared the Nativity be celebrated on December 25th, to align with these traditional celebrations as well as with Hanukkah, which also involves a miracle of light. Hanukkah seems especially important this year, with its story of the Maccabees’ liberation from the oppression of an empire. 

December 17, 2024: Having Faith in Nights — Even Dark Nights
Before all the celebrations of Light, and the arrival of enlightenment (Christmas, Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa), comes a period of darkness. Advent honors the darkness, the nothingness that precedes our existence, and how we come from non-being — even as the universe itself is birthed from dark matter and black holes. Currently, all humanity is experiencing a “dark night of our species,” which ought to bring alive in us a wild fierceness that refuses to succumb to despair, and births a new reality. “I have faith in nights,” says Rainer Maria Rilke. 

December 18, 2024: How the Dark Night of Society Meets Earth and Advent
The Via Negativa dominates this season of Advent. Looming political darkness (not only in this country but around the world) threatens to overwhelm democracy, dismantle laws, deport millions of people, and assault Mother Earth herself in the name of profits. In the face of this, we must find light even in the blackest darkness, as Howard Thurman did in Psalm 139. 

December 19, 2024: Susan Griffin, Eckhart, Gandhi: Lessons from the Dark Night
The Dark Night has much to teach us. Susan Griffin: Nothingness spreads around us. But in this nothingness we find what we did not know existed. Eckhart: What is this darkness? …. Call it: a rich sensitivity which will make you whole. Gandhi: To make any progress we must not make speeches and organize mass meetings but be prepared for mountains of suffering. That “suffering” and “sensitivity” includes sensitivity to the suffering of others, so that moral imagination (the Vias Creativa and Transformativa) may activate, as Griffin implies, to change structures, institutions, and thought habits that have contributed to the suffering of others.

December 20, 2024: Avignon, Aboriginals, Washington DC: Patriarchy On Trial
“The trial that shook France” ended today with the conviction and jail sentencing of 51 men (including her own husband) who raped Gisèle Pelicot. She had asked for an open trial, not only so the world would know what was done to her, but so other oppressed women can know they are not alone, and so men can learn that patriarchy is neither manly nor right. Throughout the trial, she wore a scarf made for her by aboriginal women in Australia, to express their solidarity. True manliness has no need to slip sleeping pills into the minds of citizens so that oligarchs can rape the very world they live in. True virility is about virtue (“vir” means man in Latin).  

December 21, 2024: Mechtild of Magdeburg on the Dark Night 
Resuming our meditations on the Dark Night, we call upon Mechtild of Magdeburg of the Beguines, the 13th-century women’s movement. At such a time I pray to God: ‘Lord, this burden is too heavy for me!’ And God replies: ‘I will take this burden first and clasp it close to Myself and that way you may more easily bear it.’ But still I feel that I can bear no longer the wounds God has given me. Many people feel this way, in the wake of the November 5 election. Mechtild says, Only one without great guilt or sin suffers pain, and advises that the only way through is to free those who are bound, give exhortation to the free. In this way you shall kindle the fire of love with the match of perseverance. 

Banner image: A dark night over Bohemia in the Czech Republic. Photo by František Lukas on Flickr.  

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.

Meditations with Meister Eckhart: A Centering Book

A centering book by Matthew Fox. This book of simple but rich meditations exemplifies the deep yet playful creation-centered spirituality of Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart was a 13th-century Dominican preacher who was a mystic, prophet, feminist, activist, defender of the poor, and advocate of creation-centered spirituality, who was condemned shortly after he died.
“These quiet presentations of spirituality are remarkable for their immediacy and clarity.” –Publishers Weekly.  

The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine

To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature,  to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God

Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations

As Matthew Fox notes, when an aging Albert Einstein was asked if he had any regrets, he replied, “I wish I had read more of the mystics earlier in my life.” The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in crisis, and we need road maps that can ground us in wisdom, inspire us to action, and help us gather our talents in service of compassion and justice. This revolutionary book does just that. Matthew Fox takes some of the most profound spiritual teachings of the West and translates them into practical daily mediations. Study and practice these teachings. Take what’s in this book and teach it to the youth because the new generation cannot afford to suffer the spirit and ethical illiteracy of the past.” — Adam Bucko, spiritual activist and co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation for Homeless Youth.