Retrieving the Empty Tomb of Jesus as a primary Christian symbol has many facets, including exploring deep ecumenism. Symbolically, the Empty Tomb is identical with the cave, which has an enormous relevance in earth-based spiritualities.
When patriarchal cultures — such as Judaism at the time of Jesus — bury the dead in caves, they perform a paradox, symbolically speaking. The cave symbolizes the body of the mother, from which a new life will be born. Thus, burying someone in a cave is by itself an affirmation of faith in the resurrection. But “mother” and “woman” in the patriarchal mind are also connected to “the body” and thus to decay and death, while “male” is seen as eternal, connected to the life of the mind, thus free from earthly bonds.
Can the Empty Tomb be experienced as a symbol of rebirth that does not put down women? Christianity did not start off as a clearly pro-woman movement, even though scholars have uncovered deep contributions made by women in its early stages, including amazing elements of anti-patriarchal thought.
Earth-based spiritualities, on the other hand, can boast an array of symbols that have been connected to “woman” as well as the omnipresent spiral-symbol, which is universally recognized as pointing to rebirth, reincarnation, and new life. The ivy and grapevine, both spiral, are symbols of rebirth and resurrection among the Celts, and in the Mediterranean the vine that represents Dionysus is meant to imply a dying with the grape in order to rise through the vine. The main role of women in contemporary retrievals of earth-based spiritualities is, of course, pretty obvious.
Overcoming the dualism between body and mind, thus between “female” and“male”, may seem a quaint enterprise when the house is burning down. One of the deep roots of the present crisis in American society is, however, the fear of powerful women. And patriarchal phantasies are not so hidden behind almost every presidential pronouncement of late.
For Christians, then, exploring deep ecumenism with earth-based spiritualities is even more necessary than it ever was. This may mean several things, including recovering those parts of one’s own tradition that are already enmeshed with other faiths. For example, celebrating Easter with a spiral dance commemorating the King’s resurrection from the tomb, as it is the tradition in rural England and France. As a rule of thumb, whatever the powers-that-be see as quaint — but in reality make them deeply upset — that’s probably the right thing to do.
Deep ecumenism is explored in several of Fox’s publications, including One River, Many Wells.
The overcoming of dualisms is discussed in several of Fox’s writings, but especially in A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice, pp. 79-87.
Fox quotes from A Spirituality Named Compassion, p. 117
Banner Image: The Inchnadamph Bone Caves, in the high limestone cliff walls of Creag nan Uamh, Scotland, where evidence indicates Paleolithic humans buried their dead. Wikimedia Commons
Queries for Contemplation
What are you doing, or planning to do, that upsets the established order of patriarchal power-over?
Recommended Reading
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
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
6 thoughts on “ The Empty Tomb and Deep Ecumenism”
The symbolism and meaning ascribed by ‘the Empty Tomb’ is new to many in western Christianity as has been said. And somehow the story takes a turn today and imbeds a ‘patriarchal power-over’. And then we are asked ‘how do we undo that’? Maybe we should not continue to give new life to patriarchy, by living our lives free of it and not be ignorant of it at the same time. We grow past our mistakes, but need to stop living in the past and move forward in the faith of living a new way. – BB.
Earth-based spiritualities need to include Reciprocity and Revirescence as well as a good dose of neo-heantenism and “heathenology”. We gather around the hearth for warmth, on the earth for life, and health for well-being.
As a striving Ecological Theology
MAY THE FOREST BE WITH YOU
Tree-Fully
DAS (Rev.Dr.)
How I radically “challenge patriarchal power”–
I’ve been writing for 3 years, on this forum’s comments section about the True (and astonishing) implications and nuances of the Mystical Revelation and its Teachings-Path, which are the source of the highest-level theology of the entire Bible, from the Creation story, to the Moses mountaintop Revelation, to the triumph of Christ’s love and non-duality, and what that means.
Very few people realize just how important, even foundational, this Mystical Revelation was for the Judeo-Christian beliefs we take for granted, including monotheism itself. The Truth of this Revelation, which Jesus tried to teach, completely contradicts the patriarchal, authoritarian, dualistic form of Christianity that’s currently “standard.”
This Mystical set of Revelation-with-Path-Teachings has been the foundation-structure which all the other Biblical teachings were built upon. But in each ancient religion where this Mysticism was incorporated (ALWAYS as sacred), existing social structures were too entrenched to be completely erased. And the secrecy which was ALWAYS imposed for mystics (to guard parts of it as secret and only carefully hint about it) unfortunately allowed patriarchal male priests to distort the Mystical teachings and hide its full Truth. But patriarchy was NEVER “inevitable” or “implied by” the sacred Mystical Revelation.
As a female playwright, I take issue with the concept of the well-made play. Writers are told that in telling a story, we must build to a climax and follow that with a quick denouement. This model has been set since the time of the Greeks, and we are told in writing classes that we must all follow it. Yeah, well this model is based on male sexuality. Why must we all tell a story that follows a male model? As a female writer, I reserve the right to tell stories however I like, possibly in waves and side stories, following a woman’s sexuality. You might say that this is one of the ways I upset the established order of patriarchal male power-over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ofZuRCUhrA
Continue to develop, share, and live the values and spirituality of the Divine Feminine in Sacred balance with the Divine Masculine — the Divine Flow of Loving Diverse ONENESS in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT ~ COSMIC CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS….
By calling it out when directly faced by it, in humorous or serious ways. Here in the South, it is endemic. I agree with the need to be mindful of the wisdom of earth based spirituality and of our indigenous and black and brown family members. The need to dominate felt by so many men is clearly a reaction to the fear of a woman’s power, which may be related to the fear of abandonment and/or the knowledge that he might be considered superfluous except as a sperm donor?