In my book on The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, I take 31 stunning and provocative sentences from Thomas Aquinas and present each as a chapter title. Then I explore that sentence in each short chapter.
In light of today’s news, including the upcoming American election only 38 days from now, it seems fitting to apply some of Aquinas’s fierce wisdom to the current scene.
I am struck anew, for example, by his insistence that “the proper objects of the heart are Truth and Justice.” Our hearts yearn for truth and justice. Lies and falsehoods do not satisfy us. One cannot build justice on falsehoods, and one cannot build society except on justice. Those who are engaged in lies cannot also be engaged in justice-making. A society falters on “fake news,” incendiary news, and very often cold indifference to the truth. There is a reason why Satan is called “the father of lies.” bell hooks teaches that “the heart of justice is truth telling.”
Aquinas is very attuned to the biblical and Jewish understanding that the intellect is in the heart, not the head. Modern consciousness abandoned such understanding and instead rationalized cognition. Descartes reduced truth by defining it as “clear and distinct ideas.”
Einstein criticized such thinking when he said that we have been given two gifts—rationality and intuition—and that values lie in the intuition and not in our rational intellect. He cautions us to be wary of too much rationality, for values do not come from the intellect, but from “intuition and deep feeling, which are the same thing.” The intellect provides methods, but it does not construct values. When Rabbi Heschel says the prophet “interferes,” that means interfering with lies that buttress injustice. And with cold indifference of sadism.
Science and the HeartMath movement teach us today that the brain is not restricted to the head, but actually operates within the heart itself. The heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart. The heart, therefore, directly influences emotional processing and higher cognitive faculties such as attention, perception, memory, and problem-solving.
People without a heart or with cold hearts that calculate how to lock up as many immigrants as possible in cold cages and defend killing innocent protesters on the streets and who have been financed to the tune of $70 billion by a supine and heartless congress need to be brought to account. That is what an election is for.
Sadism and lies are a perversion of the heart, and this perversion permeates not only today’s congress but also today’s very unsupreme Court that tells us corporations are persons with rights to pervert our elections. That gerrymandering is dandy and that dark money is no problem at all. That an open invitation for billionaires (and one trillionaire) to pour unlimited cash into elections is somehow okay in a democracy. And that gutting the voting rights act achieved by blood and martyrdom and imprisonment 60 years ago is just fine.
And that presidents—even if they have already been convicted of 34 felonies and have demonstrated a willingness to attack the capitol in violent fashion on the day of approving ballots counted for a new presidency—are immune from prosecution while in office. SCOTUS of late has been complicit in passing off lies as truths about the constitution. They too need to be held to account.
Lies and liars, whether congressional or judicial, must be held to account. That is what elections are for. That is when truth and justice and heart (including moral outrage—“enough is enough!”) come together. A very holy trinity indeed.
Banner Image: “Essential Divinity” permeating creation. Photo by Steve Sharp on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Do you agree that truth is found in our hearts as well as our heads? And that, as bell hooks writes, the heart of justice is truth telling? And that a cold and uncaring heart is a menace to democracy? And that the upcoming election is a time to uproot Congress and challenge SCOTUS?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, pp. 101-108
Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: Recognizing the Archetype of Evil in Our Time
Sins of the Spirit, Blessing of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts For the Peoples of the Earth
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors for Awakening the Sacred Masculine
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision For a New Generation
And Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
4 thoughts on “Truth, Justice, Heart: A Fierce Wisdom & Holy Trinity For Election Time”
Fatigue, confusion, astoundment, weariness, all swim in the same sea. What my reading of today’s post is: Don’t get Tired, get Fired…get Wired.
No more “woe is me”!
Re: Einstein, from whence comes Truth and Justice? From the heart yes! But also from the Soul AND the Mind. Fear Not!! “Screw your courage to the Sticking Place..(or we all shall fail.)” Humanity lives in the ebb and flow within the deeper realms where we are united. “Come Together”!! We are One in the Spirit! Remember: You are Not in charge. G*d, God, or I Am. Teilhard, Jung, Berry, Fox!!
It may be time, let’s not inhibit it. Thank God for the Intellect that is planted, watered, and nurtured in the heart and soul. “Let it be!”
100% agree!
Dear Matthew, You are my kind of guy! Thanks for standing up to the bullies and madmen/women in our world today. Heather Cox Richardson gives me hope when she says our country has been at this crossroads at least twice before, during the early Gilded Age in the late 1800s and after the Depression in the 1930s. At those times, the midterm elections eventually brought Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, yet it took another two years before FDR was elected on his platform of social reform. If I understood that correctly, let’s hope history repeats itself!
YES! YES! YES! YES! AMEN!!!! 🌎💜🙏