My Number One Wish for Humanity on New Year, 2025

As I write this DM today on New Year’s Eve, I ask myself this question: If I could have one wish for humanity this year, what would it be?  I think it would be that we could rediscover our relationship to the cosmos, for it is from that relationship that our generosity, our gratitude, our wonder, our sense of reverence and of the sacred are rediscovered and energized anew.

If it is true that “there is only one thing wrong with the human species today: You have forgotten the sense of the sacred”—as a dream told me years ago–the recovering of that sense is what is most on my mind at this decisive historical time for humanity and our common home, Mother Earth, both of which are in peril. 

Eco-prophet Thomas Berry tells us that wonder and a sense of the sacred, once lost, can only be recovered this way: We will recover our sense of wonder and our sense of the sacred only if we appreciate the universe beyond ourselves as a revelatory experience of that numinous presence whence all things come into being.  Indeed, the universe is the primary sacred reality.  We become sacred by our participation in this more sublime dimension of the world around us.

Notice how he equates our sense of the sacred with our experience of wonder. Rabbi Heschel equates wonder with wisdom: “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”  Wisdom is so rare these days.  Where are the schools and academic institutions dedicated to teaching wisdom?  Is knowledge all there is?

I dream of a world filled with wisdom schools and not just knowledge factories where wisdom and knowledge can be learned side by side and where rituals are designed to reconnect psyche and cosmos.

Wisdom is a cause of delight.  The Via Positiva is a necessary part of nurturing the human soul and as Heschel insists, we need to educate the soul and not just the mind.  

And as Einstein put it, we must educate the intuitive brain and not just the rational brain, for it is in the former that values are found.  In fact, he says that the rational brain should serve the intuitive brain for that very reason.  But he lost hope that that could happen in American education and for that very reason said, “I abhor American education.”

Einstein also reminds us that “the most important function of art and science is to awaken the cosmic religious feeling and keep it alive.”  Does what passes as education today know this?  And practice this? 

Artist Robert Henri warns us that It is disorder in the mind of man that produces chaos of the kind that brings about war….any right understanding of the proper relation of man to man and man to the universe would make war impossible.*  Including, might I insist, the war against Mother Earth.  

To be continued

 *Robert Henri, The Art Spirit, p. 144.

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Chapter 4: Cosmic, Universalist: Harmony, Beauty, Justice as Cosmic Energies, in Fox, Original Blessing, pp. 79f.

And Fox, Christian Mystics, p. 361.

See also: Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ.

And also Matthew Fox and Bishop Marc Andrus, Stations of the Cosmic Christ.

And Fox, The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human.

Banner Image: The world opens up: a young boy viewing through a telescope. Public domain photo by Steve Hillebrand, US Fish & Wildlife Service, Wikimedia Commons.

Queries for Contemplation

What is your one most important wish for humanity as we moving into a New Year?

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

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.

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.

Stations of the Cosmic Christ
By Matthew Fox and Bishop Marc Andrus.

This is a book of meditations on the Cosmic Christ, accompanying the images of 16 wonderful clay tablets by Javier Ullrrich Lemus and M.C. Richards. Together, these images and meditations go far beyond the traditional Stations of the Cross to inspire a spirit awakening and understanding of the cosmic Christ Consciousness, Buddha consciousness, and consciousness of the image of God in all beings, so needed in our times.
“A divinely inspired book that must be read by every human being devoted to spiritual and global survival. It is cosmically brilliant.” — Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit

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.