Last week I was in Florence, Italy, to deliver a lecture on Matthew Fox and Creation Spirituality. My job was to close a series of lectures on “Saving Planet Earth,” which sounded very much like the 1970s to me, but I guess it was meant tongue-in-cheek. In fact, the speakers before me were well-known biologists and philosophers who are undoubtedly aware that the hubris involved in the idea of us humans as saviors is truly out of place today.
If anything, it has become clear in the past few decades that if we humans were able to keep out of the way, nature would regenerate itself pretty easily, or at least at a much faster pace than when we meddle with it. At the same time, we are irremediably involved in the game, and from the point of view of Creation Spirituality — which is not the same as Deep Ecology — humans bring to the table both an unprecedented level of destruction as well as an unprecedented level of beauty and complexity through their unique creativity.
In this context, all talks about ecological justice become complex and even difficult. Recently, my high school students asked me about the much-used word “sustainability,” and I had to admit that, in reality, it is not about bringing back a substantial balance — as we would like to believe — but it’s simply about reducing the damage we do.
In Florence, my job was to speak as a Christian theologian and to present Fox’s theology in the context of the series. I rooted my presentation on the idea that creation is the first article of the Christian faith and that the overemphasis on redemption, divorced from creation, is the main problem. Such an overemphasis is the reason why people ask why theologians are working on ecological topics, and churches care about trees, seas, pollution, and the like. Such questions would never be raised if we cleared the ground and we stated and understood what the first article of the faith really is and what it really means.
I left plenty of time for questions and thus I found that the main themes truly interesting to my public were: (1) the damage inflicted on people by the doctrine of original sin, which historically obscured the much more relevant and weighty doctrine of original blessing; (2) the reality of Deep Ecumenism, which is not just knowledge of the other spiritual paths, but trasformation of one’s path through the other paths; (3) panentheism as a philosophically complex idea which however is intuitively grasped by the formula: “All beings are in God and God is in all beings.”
I realized again through this experience in Florence that these three big ideas, which Matthew teaches have the potential to transform today’s world. But I have also realized again that it is important to find new words to communicate them, words that speak to the younger generations. In fact, I was the youngest person in the room. When I asked my very gracious host — who teaches theology at the local Catholic seminary — where the seminarians were, he shook his head and said: “You didn’t really expect them to be interested in cutting-edge theology, did you?”
I left Florence thinking: if the soon-to-be Catholic priests have no interest in the real relevant issues at the crossroad of theology and ecology, I must talk to the others, to those youth who don’t even suspect that Creation Spirituality has treasures to offer them, because — at least in Italy — they associate it wrongly with a dying religion. I have plenty of good hard work to do! But how can I reach them, what language and what channels can I use, when the institutional channels are of no use, and the language I speak is perceived as old and quaint or irrelevant?
Banner Image: “ECO NOT EGO.” A protestor’s sign at the global strike to halt climate change, 09-20-2019. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.
Queries for Contemplation
Have you had instances or experiences with people when you realized that you must find a new language to talk about what concerns you the most? Especially about the intersection of ecology, justice, and spirituality?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human
Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic–and Beyond
8 thoughts on “Ecological Justice”
Thank you for such “dead-on” observations, Gianluiggi! What would one think of a school of future “experts” in ANY field that would not expect its students to be interested in cutting-edge knowledge in the discipline it teaches? “Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart’s Creation Spirituality in New Translation” was “cutting-edge” in the 1980s and some seminaries seem not to have heard of it yet!
The impact of a shame-based redemption Christianity is so intergenerationally ingrained that it will likely take several generations to heal from it and to adopt “Original Blessing” as the natural way to look at individual as well as collective lives. The much-needed “new” language is actually not so new, all the past great figures of Creation Spirituality have used it. Even the fiery William Blake used it when he wrote:
“To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.” [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence]
“To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour
Long ago, as a young person, this poetically intuitive wisdom of William Blake, intuitively tugged my heart without the conscious understanding of the deeper ecology and spirituality of existence of all Beings. Now, it has a sacred ring, that seems to calm me rather then trying to claim an understanding of the Nature of Reality, that seems to ring at the myriad dimension of Itself.
In reply to language for younger generations, I’m finding that the vast and growing knowledge of unseen energy in and through all things, beginning with the Big Bang, is something that can be accepted and expanded into a spiritual realm. Then asking the question “but where did that energy come from?” Still to this day beyond human knowledge? So there must be something more… immanent yet transcendent (for me it’s all the names of God) I call it the Holy Spirit Flow… always towards good… and I encourage them to try to stay in that flow, day by day 💞🙏
Exactly, well said! My personal favourite definition of panentheism comes from Black Elk of the Oglala Souix: ” We should understand well that all things are the work of the Great Spirit. We should know that He is within all things: the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains and all the four-legged animals, and the winged peoples; and even more important, we should understand He is also above all these things and peoples. When we do understand all this deeply in our hearts, then we will fear and love, and know the Great Spirit, and then we will be and act and live ans He intends.” Black Elk 1863- 1950.
Except for two friends, I’ve had trouble starting a wholistic Contemplative~Creation~Incarnational Spiritual Support Group in my community. I’ve had to mainly rely on a few small spiritual support groups on the internet for these types of spiritual dialogues, sharing, and support.
Even though true inner and outer spiritual transformation can be very challenging, Faith and Trust continues to be very important to me summarized by my personal mantra, “Being and Becoming CHRIST~SOPHIA in the Sacred Spirit/Flow of DIVINE LOVE~WISDOM, Healing, Creativity, LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS… in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT….
Pray for wisdom!
Global warming is something we all experience and contribute to it to a degree.
This reality opens up many areas for discussion that impinge on Eco vs Ego.
We humans, for the most part, believe that we alone have voices and impact or none at all. But do nature and reality not have voices and speak as well? It sounds as if young seminarians have the ‘MBA mindset’. With just several years of book learning, we are instantly promotable and know from a case study how the real world works from the comfort of our desks and not out in the real world. No, it may be best to allow patience to reign and then reach out to ‘the no longer youthful seminarians’ who have fallen from their illusory entitlement and invite them into the discussion. — BB.