As the news gets more and more dire about the takeover of American democracy by politicians in bed with billionaires who took advantage of SCOTUS’ Citizen United decision to allow floods of cash into elections, more and more we must call on the spiritual warrior in all of us to stand up and be counted before it is too late.
That calling—to be a prophet or spiritual warrior—is something Jesus calls everyone to be.
Understandably then, we have been focusing on our common vocation as human beings to stand up for order instead of chaos; justice instead of injustice; caring and compassion instead of power-over and power for power’s sake. To stand up for Mother Earth and all her creatures and our own children and grandchildren for generations to come.
For improving an admittedly imperfect democracy because the alternative—government of the billionaires, by the billionaire and for the billionaires — is unacceptable. Authoritarianism and Oligarchy are unacceptable.
And so we continue our meditations on how we develop and train ourselves as spiritual warriors. Yesterday we considered how artists, poets, musicians and activist mystics like John of the Cross inspire and support us in our journey through dark nights and temptations to despair.
And how the Four Paths are themselves a spiritual practice to render us strong in dangerous times.
Let us explore more deeply how the Four Paths are themselves a spiritual practice that deepens our warriorhood journey. The warrior or prophet is the mystic in action as William Hocking makes clear, so the grounding for the spiritual warrior is in the Via Positiva and Via Negativa which name the mystical journey.
I have written in my most recent book on Evil, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ, about how we must be like camels that fill their hump with water in order to walk through a dry and parched desert.
A warrior too must fill his or her hump with the wet waters of the Via Positiva in order to be prepared for the desert of the Via Negativa. This means a warrior must be ever more in love with life, ever more committed to biophilia, ever more thankful for life and breath and one’s time on earth, for the 13.8 billion year journey that has brought us here.
Grateful for the beauty a healthy Earth has offered us. And the healthy soil and sky, rain and sunlight, and all the forces visible and invisible that render life so amazing and varied and colorful and diverse and beautiful on this very special and motherly planet.
Drinking all that beauty in is what the Via Positiva is all about. Falling in love at least three times a day is a spiritual practice. The Via Positiva renders us grateful and fills us camel-like for the struggles ahead. A warrior after all is a lover. A prophet is first a mystic—which is to say a lover.
To be continued.
See Matthew Fox, “Four Steps to Spiritual Warriorhood,” in Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 91-93.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
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, Trump and The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
Banner Image: London police prepare to arrest a vicar for blocking Whitehall during the U.K. Extinction Rebellion protests, October 2019. Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Do you recognize practicing the Four Paths as a spiritual practice that can render you a deeper and more joyful and stronger spiritual warrior or prophet? One who interferes more effectively?
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
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
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
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
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.
3 thoughts on “The Four Paths: Practice for the Spiritual Warrior in Us All”
Thank you. As a woman approaching 87 years (who was instructed as a child that
“conformity to church law is the only way to go to heaven”, and still is often uncomfortable with her personal belief that we all are warriors and children of our Creator, your writings are a breath of fresh air. I have worked (both professionally and as a volunteer) with indigeneous peoples, assisting rural families, etc. for over 50 years, and I still mourn their problems. We all need a view of life that is filled with love, strength, wisdom, patience, hope…the list goes on…. My very Catholic grandmother had a small print by Ella Wheeler Wilcox hanging in our living room that reads “So many gods, so many creeds. So many paths that wind and wind, while just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs.” I hope that someday we will know this world…
Yes! Bernie Sanders has always been a congressional leader and spiritual warrior for social justice. In the enclosed video of Bernie he passionately reviews the crisis America and Americans (and the world) is in with the actions of Trump and his sycophant Republican and greedy billionaire followers have already begun to dismantle our Democracy and create an authoritarian unjust form of dictatorship in our country. He outlines a course of action that many American leaders and citizens have already begun to resist by acting constructively together with Faith in Truth, Peace, Justice, Strength, and Healing! May God’s Spirit be with-in and among us daily carrying out His~Her Will with and for our sisters and brothers, and for our Beautiful and Sacred Planet and Her living creatures/sustenance of us all!
Here is a suggestion for action from a FB post; I found it useful when I called my Representative but it certainly applies to Senators as well. Let’s not wait to act until we feel like perfect spiritual warriors. I make these calls in fear and trembling, but there is also a satisfaction in doing something that may or may not result in a positive outcome, but the outcome is never under our control. What we do, though, is.
Joy Cunningham
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Script to call your member of the House: 202-224-3121 (thanks to the marvelous Jessica Craven)
Hi, I’m a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is _______.
I’m deeply concerned about what’s happening at the Treasury Department right now. An unelected citizen with a drug problem and no government training has hijacked access to our most sensitive financial information and fired the civil servants in charge of keeping it safe. He’s given six kids with zero experience or clearance full access to these funds and no one knows what they’re doing with it. It’s absolutely insane. How can our money be considered safe under these circumstances? Will I still have access to [name a government funding program you count on]. Most importantly, why is Congress letting it happen? Where is the accountability? Where is your spine? I’d like a call back with answers to all of these questions, please. Than