The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers
Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox
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Grief and Praise, Walking Together |
We ended yesterday’s Daily Meditation with the sentence, “Appreciation matters.” |
Rabbi Heschel said that “humanity will not be saved by more information but by more appreciation.” Are we teaching appreciation in this time of facing our own and millions of other species extinctions? The great
poet Rainer Rilke advised us to “walk your walk of lament on a path of praise.” | Joanna Macy, writer and teacher of eco-spirituality, counsels us to embrace our pain about the world as a way of deepening our connection to it. Living Forest Farm |
Yesterday, we heard from a reader who is undergoing lots of grief about the demise of Mother Earth
as we know her, the extinction of so many species, with our own on the block as well. Grief is a sign of our times—at least it should be. We should not leave it hidden and unattended-to. Much of the anger in the world today might be unconsciously due to not
getting our grief out. |
| Good rituals do that. We need more and more ceremonies to assist us in this grief, rituals like we have been devising in our Cosmic Masses for over 25 years, and others as well. One such ceremony one can do at home is to take a
drum and beat it 15 minutes a day allowing any sounds that want to come out to come out from our third chakra (the gut). This is an ancient shamanic practice, and it works. Grief calls for our attention today. |
But so too
does the Via Positiva, our Joy and Gratitude and learning still another time not to take for granted. Another sign of our time is to wake up to not taking the health of our Earth for granted. To learn to praise anew. To recover
therefore the sense of the Sacred which has been missing for so long in our academic and political and media discourse. |
As Thomas Berry says, It has been said, ‘We will not save what we do not love.’ It is also true that we will neither love nor save what we do not experience as sacred….Eventually only our sense of the sacred will save us. | “Falling in Love with the Earth” by Thich Nhat Hanh, for the 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris. Awakened Nature |
This is why we are trying to counterbalance the obvious sadness we feel as we face our
own possible extinction and that of so many other creatures with the Good News of the mystics. The Via Positiva needs deepening as grief becomes our daily food. To be continued. |
| To view today's video, please click the image. You will be taken to today's post on the Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox website, where you can see the meditation in a larger version and also view and post your Comments. In the sharing that follows, a kind of community is developing around the DM.
If you can't reach Matthew's video on the website, try his Vimeo channel HERE. |
Queries for Contemplation
Have you learned to walk your walk of lament on a path of praise? Are we learning this together? See Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics. And Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality, pp. 90-131, 212-218. Banner Image: “Tree Hugger.” Photo by Kristin Wilson on Unsplash |
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings &
Meditations The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr.; from Hildegard of Bingen and Meister Eckhart to Thomas Merton; from Father Bede Griffiths
to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in crisis, and we need road maps that can ground us in wisdom, inspire us to action, and help us gather our talents in service of compassion and justice. This revolutionary book does just that. Matthew Fox takes some of the most profound spiritual teachings of the West and translates them into practical daily meditations.” — Adam Bucko, co-author of Occupy
Spirituality. | |
Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation
Spirituality To encapsulate the life and work of Matthew Fox would be a daunting task for any save his colleague Dr. Charles Burack, who had the full cooperation of his subject. Fox has devoted 50 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship. His more than 40 books, translated into 78 languages, are inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and have awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. Essential
Writings begins by exploring the influences on Fox’s life and spirituality, then presents selections from all Fox’s major works in 10 sections. “The critical insights, the creative connections, the centrality of Matthew Fox’s writings and teaching are second to none for the radical renewal of Christianity.” ~~ Richard Rohr,
OFM. | |
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 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 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. |
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