In the video for last Sunday’s DM, I shared Thomas Berry’s observations about the role of the “warrior” in the indigenous spiritual traditions. I also told the story of a student of mine from the First Peoples of Canada who was a student at the University of Creation Spirituality.
He shared his experience of returning from the Vietnam War and being told by his elders, “you have been a soldier and now we will make you a warrior.” The training took four years and a lot of it was learning to subtract and let go. I share a parallel story in my book on The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors To Awaken the Sacred Masculine in the chapter on the archetype of the “spiritual warrior.”
A Vietnam veteran named Broken Walk, who volunteered to go to war at seventeen, told this story. There’s a difference between being a soldier and being a warrior. Don’t ever get these two confused. When I was in the army, I was a soldier. I was a puppet doing whatever anybody told me to do, even if it means going against what my heart told me was right. I didn’t know nothing about being a warrior until I hit the street and marched alongside my brothers for something I really believed in. When I found something I believed in, a higher power found me. That’s it. That’s the story.
He protested war and went to jail for it. Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa talks about the “sad and tender heart of the warrior” and this is very real. The warrior is in touch with his or her heart—the joy, the sadness, the expansiveness of it. To confuse soldier and warrior is to feed militarism and the reptilian brain.
The Sufi mystic Hafiz knew the difference between solider and warrior when he exclaimed in one of his poems that soldiers “were lying all around him in excruciating pain”—for that is what a soldier does, deliver or receive death or excruciating pain.
At the same time, Hafiz declares, “you can become a horseman carrying your heart thought the world like a life-giving sun, but only if you and God become sweet lovers.”
The warrior, unlike the soldier, is a lover. The warrior is so much in touch with his or her heart that he/she can give it to the world. The warrior loves not only his nearest kin and mate but also the world and God. The warrior relates to God as a lover. To be continued.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors To Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 77f.
And from Fox, Matthew Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths, pp. 414-417.
See also, Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominational Priest, pp. 400-402.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
Banner Image: Mugshot of Martin Luther King Jr following his 1963 arrest in Birmingham, Alabama. Photo: Birmingham Police Department. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Have you ever confused “soldier” with “warrior”? How did you learn the difference? What difference does that make?
Recommended Reading
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
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
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
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
5 thoughts on “Spiritual Warrior vs. Soldier”
Warrior in Christ or soldier in Christ – what is the difference? Warrior in the Armed Forces or Soldier in the Armed Forces – what is the difference? None. But Christ is Christ and the Armed Forces is the Armed Forces and they are different. The difference resides in who we enlist as followers of and act on behalf of when following orders, and not in labels, definitions and semantics. — BB.
Bill, I agree with you. If we really want peace, as we keep asserting in songs and prayers. We call Jesus “Prince of Peace”, and he was. He did not ask his followers to fight for him, he allegedly said: “father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He forgave. Once we are born, the job is ours, Jesus gave us an example, but now the job is up to us, and the job is not to ask him to do it for us; the job is ours. We can start by eliminating all warrior language: in sports instead of ‘fighting’ to win, ‘striving to win’, ‘do our best effort to win’ and delight in our opponents’ skill, which gives us the chance to bring out the best in us. Instead of ‘spiritual warriors’ we can ‘nurture our love’, ‘grow in forgiveness’, ‘train in insight and consciousness’. Just get rid of the concept of war. Every war or fight sows the seeds for the next war.
Touché.
heroes
Militarism, arms, soldiering, patriotism… to me is a large destructive side of patriarchal conditioning in many societies in human history for hundreds of years that has contributed to many wars and suffering. Our patriarchal militaristic conditioned societies have become even more destructive towards humanity along with the patriarchal materialistic greed of our conditioned capitalistic economic institutions of the imperialistic Western nations the last 500 years to the present day. Our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Nature, Indigenous Peoples around the world, women, and children (our ancestral past) continue suffering the worst with our economic-militarism’s violence, racism, and injustices.
We have ‘progressed’ physically and materially in most modern human societies, but we’re still evolving morally and spiritually. Our Divine Feminine is still being birthed personally, socially, and spiritually. Our planet Mother Earth and our very existence as humanity is still very much in danger so we need many spiritual warriors working together with Feminine and Masculine Spiritual Energies within and among Us in All spiritual dimensions….