I am writing from a cellar where I took refuge from the summer heat. It is a comfortable space, furnished with a table, a sofa, electricity, running water, and a toilet. Later, I’ll get out of my hole to get food and coffee. And I can’t stop thinking of the people in Gaza who are running from one place to another to get some food to survive, under scorching heat, without clean water to drink, in the hope of not being killed in the process.
I think also of the hostages in the tunnels underground— not for a day like me but for months — with the likely prospect of being killed by “friendly bombs”. While I am writing there is still a dim hope that the Israeli military will not push into Gaza city. Popular protests have been mounting everywhere including within Israel, and Germany — the most staunch ally of Israel besides the USA — has finally stopped the sending of weapons to Tel Aviv.
So many prominent Jewish and Israeli intellectuals have said that Israel is killing itself while committing the most horrific crimes. The siege of Gaza is equal in brutality but much larger in scale than those of ancient times. It has been calculated that the level of destruction of cities in Gaza surpasses many times that caused by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
A friend has suggested that I look at the tragic world events of today through a psychological lens as well. I shall do that, not to discount the social, economical, and political explanations, but to integrate them.
The situation in Gaza looks, in part, as a homicide/suicide trap. In such cases, the perpetrator is utterly convinced of having been wronged deeply but is also unable to get away from the relationship. He feels that he can’t escape but neither can he allow the victim to move freely. In the end, the perpetrator feels that he “must” pull the trigger, first on his victim and then on himself. We all have seen plenty of variations of this scheme in movies and the news.
Obviously, this pattern does not fit all the elements of the tragedy rolling under our eyes in Palestine, but there are some that ring true.
A large portion of the Israeli population is convinced that “the Arabs” will utterly annihilate them, given the chance. Decades of propaganda have succeeded in hiding from them the reality of who is keeping whom under their heels. Centuries of homicidal persecution of their forebears have contributed to the creation of a “victim mentality” which makes them think to be the good partner of the relationship.
Hamas has been feeding the pattern with almost uncanny precision. The brutality of the October 7, 2023 attacks has contributed immensely to the equation Israeli = good, Palestinians = bad. The tragic stall has been chiseled with blood.
Ariel Toaff, professor emeritus of history at the Bar-Ilan University in Israel, has written a few days ago: I am not going to talk of the moral image of Israel, because it has been long lost. Gaza might become the tomb not of Netanyahu and his crazy followers, but ours. And we did nothing to stop him. We are, in fact, his accomplices. The right yet cruel punishment will reach us eventually. The dead in Gaza, the women and the children, will run after us with their flaming torches right to the gates of hell.
This quote shows the tragic awareness of an insider. Awareness might not be much, right now, but is our only hope. We must keep our eyes wide open and witness the events for what they are. In times like these, we must learn not to hide away, while fostering each and all the flickering lights of awareness in all the people we meet.
See Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
And Fox, Trump and the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
And Matthew Fox and Adam Bucko: Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Banner image: “Mourn the Dead, Fight for the Living.” Between 300,000 and 800,000 protested in London in November 2023. Photo by Alisdare Hickson. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
What does it mean for you to foster even the smallest lights of awareness?
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
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.
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
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Authors Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox encourage us to use our talents in service of compassion and justice and to move beyond our broken systems–economic, political, educational, and religious–discovering a spirituality that not only helps us to get along, but also encourages us to reevaluate our traditions, transforming them and in the process building a more sacred and just world. Incorporating the words of young activist leaders culled from interviews and surveys, the book provides a framework that is deliberately interfaith and speaks to our profound yearning for a life with spiritual purpose and for a better world.
“Occupy Spirituality is a powerful, inspiring, and vital call to embodied awareness and enlightened actions.”
~~ Julia Butterfly Hill, environmental activist and author of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods
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6 thoughts on “Flaming Torches and Flickering Lights”
We have to continue to reshape the narrative and move it away from political affiliations. As Israeli outsiders, the woke of any stripe look to cancel us out as Hamas sympathizers, if we oppose the destruction of Gaza and oppose the inhuman treatment of its innocent citizens. To destroy a nation and to sentence the mostly innocent to extreme physical hardship, to the point of death and despair, is an act of vengeance and brutality that is not conscionable, but criminal. We have to continue to support compassion and aid and vehemently denounce the inhumane acts taking place. — BB.
The smallest lights spinning in darkness have left me with dizziness and
mental vertigo. Faith , trust, some how clinging yet again to the unknown is
the only thing left.
💔❤️
Extreme sadness and prayers/advocacy on line with my spiritual friends that the United Nations, hopefully representing world humanity, vote to send a Peace Force ASAP to stop the genocide of Palestinian human beings by the racist Zionist Israeli government, begin opening humanitarian food aid, and begin a just process of liberation and self-governance for Palestine.
In Wikipedia, under “chosen people” one reads : “Anthropologists commonly regard claims of chosenness as a form of ethnocentrism. The concept of a people favoured or selected by God – summarizable in slogans such as Gott mit uns – can feed into generalised nationalism.”
Countless examples show that ethnocentrism feeds into ethnic cleansing (or genocide), which feeds into intergenerational trauma and hatred, which feed into more ethnocentrism, which feed into… etc. One would think that thousands of years of ethnic wars and the resulting suffering would have made it unthinkable for the self-proclaimed most intelligent creature on Earth to continue on this dire hamster wheel, but no, Homo sapiens keeps on keeping on. The despicable war crimes in Gaza suggest a variation of Tevye’s line in “Fiddler on the Roof” : “I know, [they] are the chosen people. But once in a while, can’t you choose someone else?”
I look for the light even in the darkness, which in the case of Gaza means the voices of the many who are calling for the end of genocide out of concern for the people, not to gain political advantage. There is outrage expressed daily against this evil. I look for the light in the swift reaction by many people and groups to provide help and support when there is a natural or human disaster. If we could only sustain this rush of lovingkindness! I look for the light in the courage of those who speak out against injustice, usually to their own detriment, who do not waver.
Regarding “chosen-ness”, like so many concepts, it has been twisted and manipulated to mean some sort of superiority. The original meaning and intent is to serve God in the repair of the world: Tikkun Olam https://www.brandeis.edu/jewish-experience/history-culture/2023/may/tikkun-olam-history.html