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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Ecstasy, Drunkenness on the Universe, Idolatry on Earth
I was struck a few days ago when a scientist on television said that they were poring over the first pictures from the Webb telescope and were crying while examining them.
I am glad scientists cry and cry tears of joy at their accomplishments and humanity’s accomplishments and the sharing of the universe’s wonders. Surely humanity of late has had much to cry about.
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We have seen mass shootings of children, mass destruction and death in war in Ukraine to feed the ego of a wannabe tzar in the 21st century, unsupreme courts that seek to lord over all of us and who feel anointed to tell American women what they can and cannot do with their bodies, ignoring the wishes of the vast number of Americans
who don’t want Roe to be expunged.
| “NASA scientists claim Webb telescope images nearly moved them to tears.” NASA Space News.
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And of course the Extinction thing otherwise known as climate change. And the denial of climate change and the lifting up of fossil fuel oligarchs who have remade our legal system and political system to serve their corporate capitalist gods because they have the money to do so. Fascism fashionable again and on the
rise. Idolatry on the run just as Thomas Merton predicted when he warned us that the combination of fundamentalist religion and empire building will grant us “the greatest orgy of idolatry the world has ever known.”
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The history of nature from the Big Bang to the present day, shown graphically in a spiral with notable events annotated. Every billion years (Ga) is represented by 90 degrees of rotation of the spiral. Image
by Pablo Carlos Budassi, aided by evolutionary biology researcher Professor Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther, on Wikimedia Commons.
| In the midst of our tears of sadness and moral outrage, there appears the Universe as we have never seen it
before. All 13.8 billion years of it. Our history. Our Story. Earth’s Story.
Cosmogenesis—the universe birthing and at work.
How wonderful is that? What difference can ecstasy make?
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Thomas Aquinas takes one sentence by the psalmist—”They shall be drunk with the beauty of thy house,” and adds, “that is, the Universe.”
The psalmist invites us to ecstasy and inebriation on the beauty of God’s house. But Aquinas explains the origin of our spiritual intoxication with one word: the universe. Yes, the universe exists to get us drunk. The universe exists to make us joyful beyond measure.
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The universe does not just exist, it has brought us into existence. It invites us to inebriation. Rabbi Heschel declares that the universe “shocks us into amazement”—indeed,
...the existence of the world is the most unlikely, the most unbelievable fact. . . . the existence of the universe is contrary to all reasonable expectations.
Aquinas proposes that being drunk means our
..desires will be filled beyond all measurement of merit. For intoxication is a kind of excess, as the Song of Songs says, ‘my beloved, you are drunk with love.’
| Dance of Earth and Sky. Photo by Ameer Basheer on Unsplash
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Ecstasy is another term for being drunk, as Aquinas points out, for “those who are drunk are not inside of themselves but outside of themselves.”
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Queries for Contemplation
Can you find yourself getting drunk on the universe? What difference can that make on Earth?
Matthew Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times, pp. 9-11.
And Matthew Fox, A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, pp. 203-224.
Banner Image: This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI |
Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce
Wisdom for Hard Times
A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action.
Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book! Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
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A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey
In A Way to God, Fox explores Merton’s pioneering work in interfaith, his essential teachings on mixing contemplation and action, and how the vision of Meister Eckhart profoundly influenced Merton in what Fox calls his Creation Spirituality journey.
“This wise and marvelous book will profoundly inspire all those who love Merton and want to know him more deeply.” — Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism
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See Matthew Fox's full calendar 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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