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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox
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God, an Ocean of Unfathomability Eckhart says: “Reason can never comprehend God in the ocean of his unfathomableness.” |
Do these words teach you something of the mystery that Divinity is? God as unfathomable, like the ocean is in all its depth and darkness and unexplored mysteries? If so, that is a very good thing; it is a sign of a spiritual depth and it rings true with what John of the Cross touches on when he says, “launch out into the depth.” Do not stay on the shore
watching, enter the deeper waters—especially in this new Age of Aquarius, the age of deeper waters, deeper mystery--even in the midst of deeper dangers and more present evil all around us. | The mystery of our oceans and our God. Photo by Alex Perez on Unsplash |
To launch out into the depths and enter deeper waters often means to leave much behind. This is why many of the new generation are leaving institutional religion. When our institutions are failing all around us, it is good to go to the ocean or deeper places of unfathomableness and let go of cheap god-talk and find the depths of our own souls. Part of that depth is our capacity for wonder and for awe that strikes us and lights the fire, the spark of God in us. |
| Thomas Aquinas said: The cause at which we wonder is hidden from us… We are united to God as to one Unknown….God alone knows the depths and riches of the Godhead, and divine wisdom alone can declare its secrets. Indeed, for Aquinas the mind’s ...greatest achievement [is] to realize that God is far beyond anything we think. This is the ultimate in human knowledge: to know that we do not know God… |
By its immensity the divine essence transcends every
form attained by the human intellect. Eckhart echoes this teaching when he says: “whatever one says what God is, God is not; God is what one does not say of God, rather than what one says God is.” |
Psychotherapist and Hasidic mystic Estelle Frankel, in her important book, The Wisdom of Not Knowing, invites us to “befriend the unknown” and to “trade the certainty of the known for the unknown.” As a lifelong student of Jewish mysticism she has come to learn that being receptive to the unknown, in all its many facets, allows us to become more open, curious, flexible, and expansive in our personal and professional lives. This openness is the key to all learning and creativity. It is the gate that unlocks our wisdom and courage. She cites the Zohar: “Thought cannot encompass Your divine essence” and she retranslates it as, “you cannot wrap your mind around God.” | “Title page of the first printed edition of the Zohar, Mantua, 1558. Library of Congress.” Photo by Possibly Simeon bar Yochai – Public Domain, Wikimedia |
Wisdom is dialectical and thus “always involves a synergy of knowing and not knowing, discovery and mystery, action and stillness, words and silence.” |
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Queries for Contemplation
Have you learned that you cannot “wrap your mind around God”? What follows from that? Is our culture learning it, maybe the hard way? Adapted from Matthew Fox, Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God…Including the Unnameable God, pp. 130f.
Banner image: Photo by Aaron Birch on Unsplash |
Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and
Useful Names for God …Including the Unnameable God Too often, notions of God have been used as a means to control and to promote a narrow worldview. In Naming the Unnameable, renowned theologian and author Matthew Fox ignites our imaginations by offering a colorful range of
Divine Names gathered from scientists and poets and mystics past and present, inviting us to always begin where true spirituality begins: from experience.
“This book is timely, important and admirably brief; it is also open ended—there are always more names to come, and none can exhaust God’s nature.”
-Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, author of Science Set Free and The Presence of the
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Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
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field. See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE
Join Matthew Fox as he offers a new, 12-week advanced course on the Shift Network:
7 Mystics on Recovering the Sacred and
Forging a New Story for Humanity: Timeless Wisdom to Deepen, Heal & Inspire Your Life Journey. NOTE: There is a prerequisite: In order to take this 12-week advanced course, one must have taken any prior shift course with Matthew Fox (not just the 7-week 7
Mystics course). Tuesdays, August 16-November 1, 5:00pm-6:30pm 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.
Join Matthew Fox in a 6-week virtual course on “Mystics, Mysticism and Ourselves as Mystic-Prophets,” hosted by Creation Spirituality Communities. Wednesdays, 8/24, 8/31, 9/7, 9/14,
9/21, and 9/28, 4:00pm-6:00pm PT. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox for the monthly Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat, discussing The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, Thursday, September 15, 4:00pm-6:00pm PT. Register HERE. |
Creation Spirituality in Conversation |
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Host Sandie Sedbeer welcomes Matthew Fox in a discussion of Creation Spirituality: Fresh Perspectives and Approaches to the Most Vital Issues of Our Time on WHAT IS GOING OM. Navigate to the podcast page by clicking the image on the left. |
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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