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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox
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Last week I saw a Nova program on PBS television called “Universe Revealed: Milky Way.” It was about the coming to be of our solar system born 9 billion years ago. I heartily recommend
it for setting Earth history and human history in a fuller context. The journey included pictures of the Milky Way from many angles made possible by the Gaia Telescope launched in 2010.
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It was amazing and it is amazing that one species at least, ours, can look back into time and thereby learn how God works, how creation and Creator have danced together over these 13.8 billion years that, among other things, has brought our Earth and ourselves into existence.
| Since its launch in 2013, ESA’s Gaia observatory has been mapping our galaxy creating the most accurate and complete multi-dimensional map of the Milky Way. European
Space Agency, ESA
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Black holes play a major role in the making of galaxies we are told (though we know very little about them). Black holes seem to be a kind of Nothing, but a nothing that does something very important. A nothing that produces.
Eckhart talks about God that way when he tells us that God is nothing. It is not, however, as if he were without being. He is rather neither this thing nor that thing that we might express. He is a being above all being. He is a beingless being.
To be a beingless being is to be a no-thing. A non-object. For such a no-thing, the highest affirmation is a negation–God is not this and not that.
Commenting on Paul’s blindness at the moment of his conversion, as reported in the Book of Acts (9:8), Eckhart says that when Paul rose from the ground:
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Walking with radiance. Photo by David Monje on Unsplash
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and this nothingness was God. Indeed, he saw God, and that is what he calls a nothingness….I cannot see what is One. He saw nothing, that is to say, God. God is nothingness, and yet God is something.
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Our God talk is a nothing insofar as we are “to pray God to rid us of God.” What does Eckhart mean by that? We are capable of turning God into a God who would not be God when we imaging that we can know
God. To imagine this is to reduce God to our size. Such a God is not worthy to worship. “If I had a god whom I was able to know, I would never be able to regard him as God.” God is beyond our knowledge of God and bigger than all our knowledge.
This is why God remains a “hidden God” and we are to “be silent and not flap our gums about God.”
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Queries for Contemplation
Do you think it is happenstance that there are black holes in the universe that are generative but that also sometimes our psyches feel like a black hole—from which generativity flows as
well? From the via negativa comes the via creativa?
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Passion For Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, pp. 194, 183, 182.
Also see Matthew Fox, Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality.
Banner Image: "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Photo by Dim Hou on Unsplash
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Matthew Fox’s comprehensive translation of Meister Eckhart’s sermons is a meeting of true prophets across centuries, resulting in a spirituality for the new millennium. The holiness of creation, the divine life in each person and the divine power of our creativity, our call to do justice and practice compassion–these are among Eckhart’s themes, brilliantly interpreted and explained for
today’s reader.
“The most important book on mysticism in 500 years.” — Madonna Kolbenschlag, author of Kissing Sleeping Beauty Goodbye.
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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.
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Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
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See Matthew Fox's full calendar 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.
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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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