Deepening Our Spiritual Warriorhood with John of the Cross & Others

In Saturday’s DM, responding to a reader’s request for guidance on how to sustain oneself in fierce times, we considered how to sustain the spiritual warrior in oneself by way of community such as OSE.

Last week I finished cosmologist Brian Swimme and my seven-week course on “The Four Paths” with the Shift Network. We taught the first four classes together—it is so important today to re-connect science and the cosmos with spirituality and the soul. After we covered each of the four paths from a scientific and spirituality perspective, I taught the last three weeks solo. 

I chose to focus on How to Apply the Four Paths. In class Five, I showed how both Thomas Merton and Howard Thurman were steeped in the Four Paths in their thought, writings and activism. (My book on Merton is structured in great part around Merton’s inspired writings on the Four Paths.)

In Class Six, I showed how the Four Paths assist us to draw out the spiritual depths of artists and musicians, including Walt Whitman’s and Mary Oliver’s poetry, and also Gustav Mahler’s and Beethoven’s music. 

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, for example, begins with the Via Negativa, with which he was, thanks to his deafness, very familiar. But then it leads into the Via Creativa, and ultimately to the Via Transformativa and the Via Positiva, exploding into the “Ode to Joy.”

For the final class, I focused on St. John of the Cross and how his poetry—where his spiritual genius truly lies—is best understood via the Four Paths. Unfortunately, however, he had only the three paths of purgation, illumination and union by which to interpret his own poetry. For 450 years, his prophetic poetry and life, attempting to reform his Carmelite Order alongside Teresa of Avila, has been undervalued. The major poem he wrote in the Carmelite prison where he was beaten daily and abused, The Canticle, is very much a love poem patterned after the Song of Songs, a love adventure centered on seeking God, his beloved. He finds her/him in the holiness of nature. 

My Beloved is the mountains,
And lonely wooded valleys,
Strange islands,
And resounding rivers,
The whistling of love-stirring breezes
The tranquil night
At the time of the rising dawn,
Silent music,
Sounding solitude,
The supper that refreshes, and deepens love.*

The Four Paths allow us to pull the riches from St. John’s poetry as we wrestle with our call as mystics, prophets and spiritual warriors. We too can focus on creation and nature and its eagerness to reveal the Via Posivita to us. Has anyone named the Via Positiva as strikingly as this passage from John’s time of sadistic imprisonment by his brother Carmelites?

His poem on the Dark Night, begun in prison but finished a year after his escape, actually names the steps of his escape. And culminates with a scene of human lovers. 

He names the silent time and emptying of the Via Negativa that sustains us, to stay strong through suffering and grief. He knows the healing power of art as meditation, the Via Creativa. The Via Transformativa wrapped his life from the beginning as a poor boy, to the many trials of his being kidnapped and beaten by his own brothers who were resisting reformation.   

These are means by which we deepen our vocation as spiritual warriors, and move beyond blame or self-pity to become strong and useful citizens of strength, conscience and confidence like John demonstrated and the times call for.

*Kieran Kavanaugh O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, p. 462.

See Matthew Fox, A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, pp. 47-142.

See also Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, Jen Lustig, Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action.

And Fox, “Spiritual Warriorhood,” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Faith Traditions, pp. 404-422.

And Fox, “Community and Interdependence,” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Faith Traditions, pp. 80-100.

And Fox,“Spiritual Warriors”in Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 77-104.

And Fox, Trump and The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.

To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.

Banner Image: Four Paths. Photo by Mike Enerio on Unsplash.

Queries for Contemplation

Do you recognize the Four Paths as a practice to sustain the prophet in you? Do you call on people like Thomas Merton and Howard Thurman, Walt Whitman and Mary Oliver, Gustav Mahler, Ludwig Van Beethoven and John of the Cross to ground and inspire you and nurture the spiritual warrior in yourself? It is never too late.

Related Readings by Matthew Fox

A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey

In A Way to God, Fox explores Merton’s pioneering work in interfaith, his essential teachings on mixing contemplation and action, and how the vision of Meister Eckhart profoundly influenced Merton in what Fox calls his Creation Spirituality journey.
“This wise and marvelous book will profoundly inspire all those who love Merton and want to know him more deeply.” — Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism

Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
By Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jen Listug

In the midst of global fire, earthquake and flood – as species are going extinct every day and national and global economies totter – the planet doesn’t need another church or religion. What it needs is a new Order, grounded in the Wisdom traditions of both East and West, including science and indigenous. An Order of the Sacred Earth united in one sacred vow: “I promise to be the best lover and defender of the Earth that I can be.”
Co-authored by Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jennifer Berit Listug, with a forward by David Korten, this collection of essays by 21 spiritual visionaries including Brian Swimme, Mirabai Starr, Theodore Richards, and Kristal Parks marks the founding of the diverse and inclusive Order of the Sacred Earth, a community now evolving around the world.
“The Order of the Sacred Earth not only calls us home to our true nature as Earth, but also offers us invaluable guidance and company on the way.”  ~~ Joanna Macy, environmental activist and author of Active Hope.

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

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.