Reflecting on Joanna Macy’s death has brought to my attention that I have been blessed to work with many saints over my lifetime. I wonder if that is your experience too?
I wish to share some of their names here and maybe there is a practice that can emerge from this sharing that will be valuable in our time: How many saints have you known or worked with over the years?
With the news so often highlighting the evil at work in our midst, it is a good thing to name the goodness that is also in our midst. Here and in subsequent DMs I will list such saints and in no particular order.
Joanna Macy is surely one of the saints I have known and had the privilege of working with. So also was Pere Chenu, the finest mentor I have ever interacted with—so full of joy and curiosity and creativity. So too my martyred student, Sister Dorothy Stang, who brings the stories of the suffering peasants in the Amazon rainforest as well as the suffering of the forest itself at the hands of powerful international corporations into our hearts and minds.
Also, Sister Jose Hobday, Franciscan and Seneca woman who saw eight of her nine brothers die in wars (WWII, Korea and Vietnam) and her ninth brother murdered while working on the stealth bomber. But who brought life and the spirit of St. Francis wherever she went about calling for a simple lifestyle and who taught in our ICCS and UCS programs for over 20 years including leading us in indigenous rituals such as the flower-pelting ceremony.
Speaking of indigenous rituals, Buck Ghosthorse was another mystic-prophet, healer and saint I have been blessed to know and work with and who invited many ICCS students and faculty into numerous sweat lodges and invited me also into many sacred ceremonies from vision quest to Sundances. He taught courses on indigenous spirituality and his funeral, celebrated by over 500 people of diverse religions and ethnicities, was the most powerful funeral I have ever attended. Of course, it was outdoors.
M.C. Richards, whose book Centering: In Pottery, Poetry, and the Person is a classic and as I called it in a long review, the “bible” of art as meditation. I was honored to be invited to write the Foreword for its 25th anniversary edition. How can you not love someone who called a collection of her poems, Imagine Inventing Yellow?
M.C. lived her last 14 years or so in the Steiner-inspired Kimberton community for mentally impaired adults and was a beloved teacher to our ICCS and UCS communities where she taught clay as meditation and also “poetry and word as meditation” (where she had students sew their own books for their poetic and journaling insights).
A poet and potter, artist (who took up painting at 70) and philosopher, she remained true to her path of wisdom-seeking her whole life long. Her passion for renewing education began with quitting a prestigious position at the University of Chicago to join the Black Mountain College experiment in North Carolina. I was honored that, in our last conversation before she died, she compared UCS to Black Mountain and called it a worthy descendant of it. To be continued.
See Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominational Priest.
And Fox, “Deep Ecumenism. Ecojustice, and Art as Meditation,” in Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets, pp. 215-242.
And Fox, A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey.
And Fox, “Foreword to the Second Edition” on M.C. Richards, Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person, pp. vii-xvi.
Banner Image: Matthew Fox and Joanna Macy in deep discussion. Photo gifted from The Work that Reconnects Network; background added.
Queries for Contemplation
Try this practice of meditation on spiritual mentors in your life and holy people you have encountered. Does it uplift you in times of trial and dark nights? And nurture you own resistance to despair?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest (Revised/Updated Edition)
Matthew Fox’s stirring autobiography, Confessions, reveals his personal, intellectual, and spiritual journey from altar boy, to Dominican priest, to his eventual break with the Vatican. Five new chapters in this revised and updated edition bring added perspective in light of the author’s continued journey, and his reflections on the current changes taking place in church, society and the environment.
“The unfolding story of this irrepressible spiritual revolutionary enlivens the mind and emboldens the heart — must reading for anyone interested in courage, creativity, and the future of religion.”
—Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self
Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life
In one of his foundational works, Fox engages with some of history’s greatest mystics, philosophers, and prophets in profound and hard-hitting essays on such varied topics as Eco-Spirituality, AIDS, homosexuality, spiritual feminism, environmental revolution, Native American spirituality, Christian mysticism, Art and Spirituality, Art as Meditation, Interfaith or Deep Ecumenism and more.
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
7 thoughts on “Saints I Have Known and Worked With”
“How many saints have you known or worked with over the years?”
When I tried to answer that question, it rearranged itself into “How many known saints have I worked with over the years?” and my gratitude went to all the unsung saints of the biosphere, among whom many anonymous members of the “animal” kingdom [whose name is a witness to their “anima”]. Whether I recognize it or not, they grace and bless my life daily with the example of the serene, courageous and wise touch they add to the tapestry of Life. In the traditional Litany of the Saints, the names of the known (or invented) saints are followed by “pray for us.” A reverse litany is due to all the anonymous and unrecognized saints: “Saint Anonymous, I pray for you.”
I meant: “it rearranged itself into “How many UNKNOWN saints have I worked with over the years?”
Good morning Daniel: I follow up your inspiring comment with a known/unknown saint of our times: Russian activist/martyr Alexei Navalny.
Inspired by Jesus accepting his inevitable demise on the Cross Alexei accepted his time in “the hellhole” of his prison. His concluding sentence on the back cover of his book Patriot: A Memoir: “The day will come when speaking the truth and advocating for justice will be commonplace and not at all dangerous in [his beloved] Russia.”
I am so glad I once took a course with Sister José Hobday who had us all howl at the moon one night! Otherwise the only human saint I have worked with was indigenous and non-Christian. Dogs can be wonderful saints – most but not all. A sweet golden retriever keeps me company since my husband’s death.
Thank you Matthew again for your love and appreciation for the many past and present mystics, artists, and lovers/workers of social justice (Spiritual Warriors) you have introduced us to in your writings and life time work with some of them. You have helped Us realize their universal mystical message that with Faith Our SOURCE~CO-CREATOR’S SPIRIT of DIVINE LOVE~WISDOM… Is ETERNALLY PRESENT within, through, among Us communally each in our own unique way as ETERNAL SOULS/SPARKS of the DIVINE and interconnected/interrelated in LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS to one another, Our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth, and All Sacred physical/nonphysical spiritual dimensions and Beings in Our evolving Sacred Cosmos Creation and Angelic Spiritual Realms… COMPASSIONATE COSMIC CHRIST/BUDDHA CONSCIOUSNESS….
Matthew, I am so inspired by the life and work of Joanna Macy! I am very grateful for your introduction of her to me and so many. She is truly a spiritual warrior whose message will continue to resonate among us. We will find courage in her words to focus on compassion and use our intuition, in order to do the necessary work, no matter how small our contribution, toward “righting the ship”! Bless you in all you are doing toward this critical goal, along with that of your amazing DM team!! 🙏🏻 Lynne
Thank you, Matthew, for the great work you are doing.
Two former religious, Charlie and Pauline Sullivan, have spent more than half a century, living on a shoestring, riding their bicycles to the halls of Congress, and advocating for prison reform. They have promoted rehabilitation rather than punishment and managed to create a huge organization called CURE with chapters in most states. They have also created nine international Congress’s on prison reform and human rights. And at our age, they soldier on. True Saints in my book.