In Saturday’s DM we meditated on “Ecumenism, Spiritual Warriorhood, and Common Survival,” and invoked the Episcopal and Roman Catholic bishops of Washington, D.C. finding common ground to speak about important values today.
Courage is required for a spiritual life.
Chief Arvol Looking Horse, Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe, speaks to all of us when he challenges all living today to stand up and take on the responsibility the times are calling for:
Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind. Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger? Know that you yourself are essential to this world. Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this world. Did you think you were put here for something less?
If all of us have been put here for something great—like “deciding the future of humankind”—we are going to need courage and conscience which are common to spiritual warriors. The Biblical tradition links hands with Chief Arvol in that regard.
Consider how Chief Arvol’s urgent advice complements this teaching from St. Thomas Aquinas. He reminds us that the virtue of magnanimity urges us to do great things and to “brave great dangers for great things, for instance the common welfare, justice, divine worship, and so forth.”
Do we “brave great dangers” for the sake of the common good?
Aquinas cites the prophet Jeremiah who said, “The Lord is with me like a brave warrior.” The prophet needs protecting against enemies both internal and external, he tells us, and he outlines the elements of spiritual warriorhood when he names three elements that saints need for making peace:
First, the strength of divine power. Psalm 125 says: ‘Those who believe in the Lord are like Mount Sion which will never be shaken….’
Second, the purity of one’s own conscience, as in Proverbs 3: ‘You will walk confidently along your way and your foot will not stumble.’
Third, the removal of hostile evil, as in John 16: ‘Be confident, I have overcome the world.’
Strength, Conscience and Confidence: These are hallmarks of the prophet. We all need them. We can all support one another in the struggle. That is what solidarity means after all.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 408f.
And Fox, Trump and The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, pp. 57-80.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.
And Fox, “Spiritual Warriorhood,” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Faith Traditions, pp. 413f and pp. 377-422.
And Fox,“Spiritual Warriors”in Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 77-104.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: Protesters in an unknown location face off against riot police. Photo by Samoel Safaie. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you agree with Chief Arvol Looking Horse that you are here to personally decide the future of humankind—and nothing less? What follows from that?
Recommended Reading
Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him. He also translated many of his works such as Biblical commentaries never before in English (or Italian or German of French). He gives Aquinas a forum so that he can be heard in our own time. He presents Thomas Aquinas entirely in his own words, but in a form designed to allow late 20th-century minds and hearts to hear him in a fresh way.
“The teaching of Aquinas comes through will a fullness and an insight that has never been present in English before and [with] a vital message for the world today.” ~ Fr. Bede Griffiths (Afterword).
Foreword by Rupert Sheldrake
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.
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
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
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
10 thoughts on “Deep Ecumenism, Spiritual Warriorhood & Humankind’s Future”
“There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all; that is the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being.” Mahatma Gandhi.
Perfect quote from Ghandi for this time! Thank–you for that!
Mahatma Gandhi’s vision reminds me of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. His wife Yulia is following in his footsteps as she promotes his recently published memoir: ALEXEI NAVALNY PATRIOT: A Memoir.
The photographer who took the photo of Arvol, Shane Balkowitsch, is a bit of a warrior himself in his own work with photographing Native Americans and Climate Action. He is in Montana and I became familiar with his work during the Water Is Life resistance movement. Here’s his website https://nostalgicglasswetplatestudio.zenfolio.com/about.html
I have several photos of Chief Arvol Looking Horse Keeper of the Pipe that I’ve taken over the years. My favorites are from the Protect & Reject encampment in Washington DC in the fight agains the KXL pipeline when Ranchers and Native Americans came together to fight the pipeline. I’ll send it to you by email.
The voices of Christian nationalism have dominated religious discourse in the U.S. for the entirety of the 21st Century. It is far, far beyond time for that to change. Matthew, you mentioned the other day that Rachel Maddow said that “religion may prove to be a kind of sleeping giant as justice gets trampled on regularly and deliberately by those committed to implementing Project 2025.” It is tragic that the voices of contemplative Christians, progressive Christians have not been given sufficient airplay this century–voices like yours and Jim Wallis and Richard Rohr and Diana Butler Bass and James Talarico. It’s time we demand equal time. Perhaps the controversy over Bishop Budde’s gentle, benevolent pressure on the new administration to implement the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 25 presents an opening for more of our voices to be heard in the public square. As Chief Arvol Looking Horse encourages, we have been born for this time.
I hope that more religious leaders speak out like Bishop Budde, but maybe each one of us, in however we communicate and with whom, can make it a point that our motives are spiritual and name our religious tradition or traditions as the base from which we work for justice. Chief Arvol and Rachel Maddow and Bishop Budde have wide audiences, and most of us do not. But I do agree with the Chief that we each have a calling and a responsibility to help decide the future of humankind.
Yes! We are each called to transformation on our spiritual journeys from our limited ego self to our True Heart Self/Cosmic Christ Consciousness healed, strengthened, and guided with others (including Our Sacred Mother Earth/Nature) by Our Source~Creator’s LOVING Divine Will, Diverse Oneness, Presence, Strength, Action… with-in our sacred hearts~Eternal Souls in our daily lives in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….
Hello again. I was disappointed that the corrected video did not show Matthew Fox. Just the photo. Hope we can see Matthew next Monday!!
Our deepest apologies for your disappointment in lacking the video feed on Matthew’s reflection. The team struggled through a significant number of technical difficulties that night and could only provide the audio. We hope that these technical issues will be resolved for his reflection next week.
You must have struggled through Hoopes!