Among my two books coming out this fall, one offers a new interpretation of mystic, poet and activist John of the Cross. And the second addresses “antichrist,” an archetype of evil fitting for our times.
Someone asked me recently if there a connection between the two books. Indeed there is. I identify the triple dark night of our times as the demise of democracy; the rape and matricide of Mother Earth; and the resultant chaos taking place in our souls and body politic.
Many are coming to realize that humanity needs a rebirth. We need to face our possible extinction honestly while also expanding our powers of moral imagination–and celebration. To celebrate anew the wonders of our unique but fragile planet and the stunning universe that has birthed it—our sun, moon, tides, oceans, soil, plants, animals and finally ourselves: Homo sapiens. The last hominid left walking the earth.
Homo sapiens translates as wise humans. Would we were living up to our name! Rabbi Heschel warns that “sin is the refusal to become who we are.”
Is humanity becoming who we are and can be today? Is humanity practicing wisdom? Or are we on a path of folly, its opposite? Are we destroying our unique home and planet in the name of corporate greed, war and patriarchal power trips born of self-hatred?
Wisdom is a She in the Bible and in other religions around the world as well. Patriarchy seeks to banish wisdom and live out of knowledge alone, from which raw power emerges—such as the power of AI and Fascist power-grabbers who are busy replacing democracy with their oligarchal whims.
In contrast, Wisdom sees the big picture. She begins with the whole and not the part. She recognizes the wonder of our universe and our place in it. She rejects the idolatry of power, might, power-over and rapaciousness.
She begins with the joy and eros of being here in a cosmos of 2 trillion galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, on a journey 13.8 billion years. Still expanding, still birthing, to the tune of a new star every 15 seconds.
“Awe” is called “the beginning of wisdom” for a reason. Wisdom begins with awe because she is so much bigger than us.
All awe is an encounter with the Great Mystery that calls us from self to Self, from littleness to bigness and even greatness. Such beauty heals. And awakens. Nothing remains the same and nothing remains small in the context of the Via Positiva.
So big is awe and gratitude that instead of fleeing the suffering and triple dark nights of our time, we are encouraged to journey through them into a new world that we ourselves are called to co-create. We are called to courage, a big heart.
As Joanna Macy used to say, “when your heart breaks, the whole universe can pour through.”
John of the Cross was an activist who suffered deeply for his efforts to reform the Catholic Church in Spain in the 16th century. Working alongside his older Carmelite sister and reformer, Teresa of Avila, he was kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured by his own Carmelite brothers for trying to renew society and religion in his time.
What saved him in the darkness of his imprisonment and despair was his poetry (the Via Creativa). His major poem written in prison, called the “Canticle” and based on the Biblical love poem “Song of Songs,” was born of his spiritual and moral imagination. It focused almost exclusively on keeping the Via Positiva alive. Remembering the joy of existence, of the “Beloved” or God, even in the darkness.
Therein lies wisdom for our times too. Keep the Via Positiva alive while fighting the good fight for truth and justice.
Banner Image: St. Sophia, the Almighty Wisdom (1932). Art by Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947). Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you think Homo Sapiens is living up to its name? How do education and religion, politics and economics, art and ritual have to change in order to render that possible?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
The Beloved Will Guide You: St. John of the Cross & The Triple Dark Night of Our Times.
Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: Recognizing the Archetype of Evil in Our Time.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet.
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality.
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation.
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8 thoughts on “Wisdom—or Folly? John of the Cross, MAGA & the Antichrist”
Wisdom sometimes, Folly most of the time. As the proverb goes: “It’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest.” I believe that, globally, Homo sapiens is unworthy of his self-attributed name. In the Homo sapiens’ home, most of the debates between “experts” are about the pattern on the wallpaper and the refrigerator size while the home is ablaze. The North American way of life overshoots by a factor of five the Earth’s capacity to sustain it, and it is completely foolish to believe that it is sustainable or that it can grow further. Homo insanus would be more accurate.
Primarily folly. The blind leading the blind…I’m amazed how they stumble,
homeward through the haze. – David Crosby.
Yes, artists are one of the main guiding light these days.
Yet those who can must try.
Homo Sapiens is not living up to its name as we are experiencing. Ever since Donald Trump came into the picture, beginning with his first term, he has thrown, not only us into chaos, but the whole world. Creation is in revolt, and we are all paying the price.
For the most part, we humans historically and currently, do not seem to be living up to our name, Homo Sapiens/“wise humans.” Currently there seem to be many dangers to our species which has become increasingly destructive, even towards our sacred living planet/Gaia with all Her living creatures and graceful abundance which has maintained humanity throughout our history. We have to maintain Our Faith, healing, creativity, strength, and Divine Compassion kept alive by many of our ancestors and Lightworkers who have remained open to the Loving/Wise Spirit of the Divine Feminine within and among Us in All Our Sacred Co-Creation Cosmos, including All physical/nonphysical dimensions/Beings who are Our spiritual allies, in Our continued evolution….
This is a perfect meditation for me today, Matthew. I awoke from a dark dream recognizing once again the dark night of the collective soul through which we are living. I’m using the phrase “through which,” because I believe, hope anyway, that we will come out the other side. Homo sapiens is not meant to live this way–not meant to see our neighbors stolen from their families and deported to nightmarish prisons; not meant to have jobs taken away from creative writers, virtuous public servants, and union workers, replacing them with AI and machines. I won’t go on. It’s too dark to mention all the atrocities–physical or moral. Humans are meant to live with laughter, art, beauty, justice. God created the universe as Extravaganza and Earth as Garden. This should tell us something about God. Rabbi Heschel’s statement about sin conjures what I wrote the other day somewhere. Acts of violence are unnatural. That’s why so many soldiers come home from war deranged. They’ve been forced to do something that goes against the soul. The things the very rich are doing have wreaked havoc on their souls. Each of us needs to find a way to return to the garden, live in joy, however we can, in the midst of all of it, because without that, we are already dying.
We are anything but wise at this present time. As for how our culture might be changed, I believe the simple answer is for humanity to be awed. Something big and and all-inclusive enough to grab our collective attention, shaking us to the core of our DNA. What that might be is hard to say but I would strongly suggest that is Extraterrestrial in its nature.
For years I’ve struggled with new age friends who challenged my anger regarding injustice by rationalizing that people are living out their karmic destiny or have chosen this path for their own liberation. Then I found this definition of Quietism: a religious, philosophical, or political attitude of total passivity, inner repose, and the belief that people should accept events or conditions without trying to change or resist them. In 1699 the Catholic church recognized Quietism as a heresy, warning that it rejected human collaboration with divine grace and moral duty, (google). So, bravo for your book on the Anti-Christ that rejects this stance. Now, here is my struggle. Those on the religious right constantly refer to their opponents as evil people and easily recognize socialism as a tool of the Anti-Christ. These projections have justified genocide and torture of one’s enemies in the past and present times. How does your book differentiate between evil acts and the persons committing these acts? Do we also refer to them as evil beings? At a meditation group, someone pointed out that we are all eventually “saved.” “Even Hitler will make it to heaven,” he added. How easily we all rush to condone a perpetrator without the accompanying passion for addressing the cruelty and injustice of their actions.
Philosophy
for John H. Haddox
To arrange life upon
the neat shelves of reason
is no mean game,
but to call such truth
is a kind of madness.
Living has a chthonic tangle
of roots impossible to sort.
Forget it; call philosophy
for the game it is
and embrace the clutter.
Mark your place in Aquinas
with a butterfly’s wing
found just outside the door
and on top lay Vasconcelos marked
with a leaf whose death-flush
made you stop to pick it.
Then bury both under love-notes
and clippings held down with a rock
whose shape and feel delight the hand.
Life is not tidy, nor is love;
thought without compassion
is a tool for nothing worth the making.
While you play the game, remember:
It is one thing to know,
another to be wise.
© Rafael Jesús González 2026