The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers
Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox
|
On Gratitude for the Immanence of God in
Nature |
We continue our meditation with Italian psychologist and philosopher Vito Mancuso. In his Introduction to the Italian translation of Original Blessing, he compares myself and Giordano Bruno, who was also a Dominican and was hauled into
the inquisition and burned at the stake for daring to bring the teachings of Copernicus into his theology. |
Mancuso quotes Bruno on the immanence of God in nature: The universal intelligence is that selfsame force which replenishes all, illuminates the universe, directs nature and produces | The trial of Giordano Bruno by the Roman Inquisition. Bronze relief by Ettore Ferrari (1845-1929), Campo de’ Fiori, Rome. Wikimedia Commons. |
all
its forms. It is that which impregnates matter with all its forms; and according to reason and the condition of each, it figures, forms, and interweaves nature with all orders of marvels, those which we cannot attribute either to chance or to another principle that does not know how create order and make distinctions. Bruno writes that this divine principle of order comes calling in various forms of the old philosophies and concludes: |
“Branches” 1) Counterclockwise from top left: “Forest” by Allain Siddiqui on Unsplash. 2) Thin fungal hyphae in mycelium networks transmit chemical messages among
trees:TheAlphaWolf [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons. 3) Tributaries of the Yarlung Tsangpo River, Tibet. Photo by NASA. 4) Illustration of bronchi and bronchioles; HouseOfMica.org. | To us it is called the ‘internal artificer’ because it forms matter from within, just as the stem comes forth
from within the seed or root. From within the branches are formed, and from within the leaves and flowers and fruit come forth. From within it is formed, figured, and interwoven… the true efficient cause, not many expressions but one expression, all from natural things. |
Mancuso continues: Speaking of the immanence of God in nature, Matthew Fox translates the prologue of John’s Gospel, theologically the deepest passage in the New Testament, in this forceful
way: In the beginning was the Creative Energy:
The Creative Energy was with God
And the Creative Energy was God
It was with God in the
beginning. |
Through it all things came to be….
The Creative Energy was made flesh,
It pitched its tent among us,
And we saw its glory,
The glory that belongs to the only Child of the Creator,
Full of grace and full of truth. | Artist’s view of night sky from a hypothetical planet within a young Milky Way-like galaxy 10 billion years ago, the sky are ablaze with star birth. Image Credit:
NASA/ESA/Z. Levay (STScI). Wikimedia Commons |
Mancuso quotes Bruno on spirituality as gratitude for life: In time, all gives and all receives. Everything changes; nothing is annihilated. Only one [that is, God] doesn’t change. Only one
is eternal, and only one is able to persevere eternally, the one and the same—with this philosophy my spirit grows and my intellect is magnified. And adds: On the same theme, Fox writes: "The Universe itself, blessed and graced, is the proper starting point for spirituality." |
| 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. |
See Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality, p. 40 and In principio era la gioia, pp.
xixf. See also Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality.
Banner
image: "Cold morning sunrise over Lake Michigan." Photo by Todd Trapani on Unsplash |
Queries for Contemplation Do you recognize the immanence of God in nature in John 1 and elsewhere in the Scriptures and beyond the Scriptures from your own experience? What follows from that? |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
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 Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit | |
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.
| |
See Matthew Fox's full calendar 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 and Neil Douglas-Klotz for “The Aramaic Jesus and the Cosmic Christ: Enduring Lessons for a World in Confusion,” a live video conversation online, a
pre-launch event for the release of Revelations of the Aramaic Jesus, Sunday, September 11, 10:00am-11:15am 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. |
Matthew Fox, Caroline Myss, and Andrew Harvey offer a 3-part series of solo online lectures on “The Power of Truth, Wisdom, Choice Part 2” through the Sophia Institute in Charleston, SC. Wednesdays, September 21, 28, October 5, 3:00pm-4:30pm PT. Register HERE. Creation Spirituality in Conversation |
| Andrew Harvey, author of The
Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism, interviews Matthew Fox on The Essential Writings of Creation Spirituality, July 26, 2022. |
Please share this post! Just click the buttons below.
OR share your insights on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #RevDrMatthewFox and tag Matt with @RevDrMatthewFox
|
|
|
|
