In his revisiting the seven deadly sins of the Catholic tradition, after speaking of sloth or acedia as the root-vice, Matthew Fox examines “lust” and connects it, quite obviously, to the second chakra, which is where sexual energy concentrates.
Matthew finds a good side to lust as well as a bad side, which is best understood as control and addiction. On one hand, we can experience sexuality as an avenue and a path toward the Divine. Tantric sexual practices and the Song of Songs in the Western Scriptures are examples of the praxis of sexual pleasure as a theophany or sacramental experience. On the other hand, sexuality can be turned into an addiction and a power trip.
Instead of the equality and mutuality that a sexual union can enhance, the energy of sexual desire may be employed to control and objectify the other, as we know too well. Once the other is a “thing”, lust can issue in sex addiction, much like it is the case with food or with any other substance or physical reality. The tradition has called these unfortunate habits “sins of the flesh” while Matthew prefers to call them “sins against the flesh” to underline that the flesh, in and of itself, is a blessing.
It is important to emphasize the positive side of lust by recognizing that this kind of energy, the immediate desire for union and generativity, goes even beyond the human and the animal realms. The lust of flowers that bear fruits and grains that strive so hard to spread their pollen amidst the wind blowing and the insects flying — all the lust of the world makes us be and live and ourselves be lusty. We are dealing, therefore, not with a private energy, but with a cosmic one.
Although not all relationships are sexual, there is a grounding of all relationships in the energy of cosmic lust, in the sense of a desire for union and reciprocity, unless such desire is perverted into a quest for control and domination. The fact that so many mystics have spoken of sexual energy as a metaphor for love of all kinds, including Divine love, is very telling. Not only sexual pleasure is the epitome of ecstasy, but the gathering of human lovers is always a generative activity. That is, the relationship between the two implies a third, when the relationship is healthy. In the Christian tradition, Divinity itself was not content with self-love or even dual love. Its own love created a third love, a Holy Spirit.
We don’t need to look far away to see that the violence of insatiable desire is built into the very economic structures of our culture and that the “market morality” of our time is destroying healthy lust and sexuality. Matthew borrows the expression “market morality” from Cornel West and further quotes several feminist authors who, as a whole, offer an alternative to the patriarchal exploitation of sexuality and women.
Charlene Spretnak speaks of the “empowerment” of women in terms of their “cosmological self;” Rosemary Ruther describes feminism as the quest for wholeness; Adrienne Rich defines feminism as “developing the nurturing capacities of both women and men”; Suzi Gablik speaks of feminism as the principle of interdependence.
Perhaps one thing that we can do is re-reading these authors and meditate deeply upon their suggestions, as well as on Matthew’s own revision of the meaning of “lust” and “pleasure” in Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh (pp. 209-233), in Original Blessing, and in many other volumes. Being women and men who walk in life, in our very violent environment, without fear of our own lust, without accepting to be objectified by someone’s perverted lust, while carrying a deep respect for all others and for all relationships, is a blessing and a task. It is holy work.
Quotes from Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh, pp. 210, 213, 206, 219, 221.
See also Fox, Whee! We, Wee All the Way Home: A Guide to Sensual Prophetic Spirituality
See also Fox, Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God…Including the Unnameable God.
See also Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths.
See also Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet.
Banner Image: “Couple in Love” Photo by Lightfield Studios, Adobe Stock
Queries for Contemplation
Do I realize that my efforts at justice and mutuality in my own personal relationships is holy work? Am I able to see that such work is at the root of all changes that I am called to effect in the world?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
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
Whee! We, Wee All the Way Home: A Guide to Sensual Prophetic Spirituality
Years ahead of its time when first published in 1976, this book is still bold and relevant today. Perfect for anyone who thinks mysticism needs to get out of the head and into the body. Matthew Fox begins the Preface to this book by stating, “This is a practical book about waking up and returning to a biblical, justice-oriented spirituality. Such a spirituality is a way of passion that leads to compassion. Such a way is necessarily one of coming to our senses in every meaning of that phrase.” One of Matthew Fox’s earliest books, this title explores the importance of ecstasy in the spiritual life. Fox considers the distinction between “natural” ecstasies (including nature, sex, friendship, music, art) and “tactical” ecstasies (like meditation, fasting, chanting); he goes on to consider that a truly authentic mysticism must be sensuous in its orientation, so to cultivate the maximum amount of ecstasy for the maximum amount of people.
Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God …Including the Unnameable God
Too often, notions of God have been used as a means to control and to promote a narrow worldview. In Naming the Unnameable, renowned theologian and author Matthew Fox ignites our imaginations by offering a colorful range of Divine Names gathered from scientists and poets and mystics past and present, inviting us to always begin where true spirituality begins: from experience.
“This book is timely, important and admirably brief; it is also open ended—there are always more names to come, and none can exhaust God’s nature.” -Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, author of Science Set Free and The Presence of the Past
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
Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in directions that promote love of life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic.
“Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow. Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby Spong, author, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Living in Sin
5 thoughts on “Control and Addiction vs. Healthy Relationships”
Are you play-acting lust in a romantic dance? What is your motive for sexual climax?
Beautiful and enlightening meditation Gianluigi! You highlight the important writings of Matthew Fox on Creation Spirituality that values the many manifestations of the Divine Feminine, especially the creative energies of Divine Love and Wisdom in human history’s struggle for Truth, Justice, Healing , Transformation, Creativity, Beauty, Joy, Compassion, and Loving Diverse ONENESS in Our human/spiritual relationships with one another, and with All living creatures/beings in Our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth and Our evolving COSMOS….
Dear Matthew Fox,
I haven’t read Wrestling with the Prophets yet, but even hearing about it stirred something in me. Recently, I watched Conclave—and I felt it in my gut: a closed circle of old men in red robes deciding who gets to speak for God.
What stuns me even more: women still show up. Nuns still support this bullshit. They teach, heal, lead—and yet they’re denied full authority.
We condemn the Taliban for using religion to silence women—yet the Church does the same, wrapped in ritual and reverence.
The Church will not be whole until women are fully seen. Fully heard. And fully leading alongside men—without permission.
Thank you for being a voice of truth. Your work gives strength to those of us who still believe in the sacred—just not in systems that betray it.
With respect,
Ilka Fischer
EVERY Mystical Revelation INTIMATELY AND FULLY is carried THROUGH the physical body. It is an ascent IN and THOUGH the body, which uses the body as a (passive) conduit to lift the soul into Union (unio). This is true in EVERY form of this Mysticism (Judaic Biblical and Kabbalah, Christian, Sufism, Upanishads and Hinduism). The body IS the sacred Mystical channel. It’s also lovingly interconnected with other people and within the natural world… when lived in its Mystical, nondualistic fullness.
The hatred of sexuality is a warped version of the deliberate “channeling, blocking, and redirecting of sexual energy” used originally in some of the more physical practices of ancient meditation/yoga. Like fasting, it acquired fanatic, competitive and masochistic adherents. “Saints” were those willing to be the most extreme in their bodily deprivations. Their fanaticism was (and still is) hailed as PROOF of the “purity of their devotion.”
Buddhism denounced those extremes because they damaged and interfered with the very body that channeled the meditative/worshiping energy and tempted people to pride and dualistic thinking. While Zen Buddhism is different from Neoplatonic Mysticism, they share many similar concepts and practices.
Body/mind non-dualism and universal interconnectedness are concepts all people should learn about. The world needs their healing messages.
l love Matthew’s reframing of “the flesh.” “[S]ins against the flesh” indeed underlines the beauty that “the flesh” (our incarnation as humans) is a blessing. (I don’t see “envy” as a bad thing here because I believe it to be metaphorical: but some say that the angels are envious of humans because we can touch, taste, smell, and use all our senses to experience this world. In the same sense, Matthew talks about “the empty chair.” We here got to experience incarnation; whereas, so many possible humans have not gotten a chance at having a body. I take comfort, even with the difficulties I’ve experienced in my life, that I am “in a chair,” while so potential entities never got that chance.