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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox
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Tasting the Nothingness of Our Times
Part of the Via Negativa and the Dark Night of the Soul is a deep tasting of Nothingness. I think many of us are tasting Nothingness today in the face of an unhinged Supreme Court beholden as it is to Opus
Dei, the Koch brothers and the NRA.
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We should not run from this encounter with Nothingness. Nothingness is part of the deeper spiritual experience.
On June 14 we devoted a DM to this topic, how Thomas Merton and Meister Eckhart both address Suffering and Nothingness while discussing the “spark of the soul.”
And Hafiz speaks of Nothingness in a poem we shared recently.
Repeated blows from the unsupreme court decisions released in the past ten days bring up the Nothingness reality anew.
| Gazing into the void of nothingness. Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash.
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One feels almost helpless in taking in decisions that give government rights over the bodies of women and girls—including the 10-year-old in Ohio who was raped and recently had to flee her state to seek an abortion—and throw out a 49-year-old constitutional right to do so.
How many other similar mad stories will play out thanks to the witch-burning admirers on the supreme court who just signed off on a document that tells women and girls that they, six judges on the supreme court, have the right to demand girls and women bring all fetuses to term because they say so? (Not because the Constitution says so—because
it does not.)
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The case of the 10-year-old girl forced to flee to another state for an abortion made headlines worldwide. WION, from India.
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Or the radical decision to hasten the killing of mother earth, our mother, by gutting the EPA of its rights to challenge the industrial polluters and fossil fuel engines of our culture. An advance of matricide therefore.
The Koch brothers are rejoicing (one has already left earth and facing his maker as they say; Dante would have made a special place in hell for him).
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And other fossil fuel magnates will get even richer; maybe Joe Manchin and his coal-based business enterprise is rejoicing too. But future children choking on bad air and responding to more drought and fires on the one hand and more floods and hurricanes on the other, and food shortages galore, not so much.
Or the arrogant decision to throw out a 111-year-old law in New York state that limits the rights of gun owners to carry their guns wherever they wish even in crowded cities, subways and the rest. Sounds like an invitation to…you know what.
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The “leader” of the new majority, the spouse of insurrectionist Ginni (“there are no rules in war”) Thomas, actually invited new lawsuits so that the current court in its infinite wisdom can challenge gay marriage and contraception on the same basis that they challenged Roe v Wade.
| Leah Litman and Adam Serwer join MSNBC’s Mehdi Hassan to discuss Supreme Court plans to take up a case that could give state legislatures essentially unchecked power over the
outcome of federal elections.
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It seems this court sees itself as bedroom police rather than as impartial jurists.
The same court is eagerly committed to take up next year the topic of letting state legislatures decide national elections (just like the last president tried to do this year but failed).
Yes, there is lots of nothingness on our tables at this time.
To be continued
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Queries for Contemplation
Are you tasting Deep Nothingness at this time? Have you tasted it in previous occasions? Are you learning and have you learned to let Nothingness be
nothingness?
See Matthew Fox, “Kenosis” and “Sinking into Nothingness and Letting Nothingness Be Nothingness,” in Fox, Original Blessing, pp. 140-156.
Banner Image: “Lost hope.” Photo by akaTman on Flickr. |
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
In this book Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology). Here Fox lays out the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.”
–Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
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Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field.
See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE
Join Matthew Fox and others in Rupert Sheldrake’s 80th Birthday Celebration: A Scientific and Spiritual Pilgrimage, taking place in London and virtually around the world. Friday, July
8, 9:30am-8:00pm BST (GMT/UTC+1). Register HERE.
Join Matthew Fox and special guest Caroline Myss for a 6-part Reflections Parallel course, “ Beyond Patriarchy: Recovering the Divine Feminine and Sacred Masculine and Why it Matters Today,” hosted by the Caroline Myss Educational Institute. July 11, 13, 18, 20, 25, 27 (Mondays & Wednesdays) 4:00pm-5:30pm PT (GMT/UTC-7) Register HERE.
Join Matthew Fox at the monthly Our Lady of the Prairie Virtual Retreat with a discussion of The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times. Thursday, July 14, 4:00pm-6:00pm PT (GMT/UTC-7)
Register HERE
Join Matthew Fox for the monthly Our Lady of the Prairie virtual retreat, discussing One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths. Thursday, August 18, 4:00-6:00pm PT. Learn more HERE.
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Creation Spirituality in Conversation.
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Victor Fuhrman of Destination Unlimited on OMTimes interviews Matthew Fox on Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality. Navigate to the podcast page by clicking the image on the left.
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Announcing Matthew Fox's Newest Book!
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Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
Selected with an introduction by Charles Burack
“This collection of Fox’s most life-giving insights blesses the connection between caring for our Mother-the-Earth and lifting up marginalized voices, between waking up from the dream of separation and stepping up to mend the net of creation.”
—Mirabai Starr, author, God of Love and Wild Mercy
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