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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A Ceremony of Sorrow, Hope, Action in the Face of Nothingness
Speaking of Nothingness, as we have been doing for several meditations now, following is a teaching from “The Shalom Report” that I think is worthy of further meditation. With permission from Rabbi Arthur Waskow of The
Shalom Center, I am pleased to share these teachings and encourage you to go to the full report HERE.
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It is moving to see various religious/ spiritual traditions focusing again on the realities we share—such as the holiness of creation and our role as humans to work to “preserve it in the good” (Thomas Aquinas’s definition of salvation).
| Apr 13, 2017 Rabbi Arthur Waskow speaks on Interfaith Moral Action in a Climate Multi-faith Service honoring MLK with a call for Climate Justice. IMAC
CLIMATE.
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Deep Ecumenism urges us to look at traditions other than our own for wisdom and prayer and shared action.
Says Rabbi Waskow:
Tisha B’Av (the midsummer day of Jewish mourning for the ancient Temples in Jerusalem, and of hope for a transformed future) can be focused on the endangered Earth as our Temple. As the ancient Temples were burned by the Babylonian and Roman Empires, so Temple Earth is bring burnt, boiled, broiled by imperious Fossil Fuel Corporations bent on increasing already
Hyper-Profits.
Ancient midrash asked, “When was the first chant of Eicha (the first lamenting word of the Book of Lamentations)? And the answer came, “Ayekka!” – a word that has the same root letters and means “Where are you?” It was God’s own wailing outcry in the parable of Eden.
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T he Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans Under the Command of Titus, A.D. 70. Chromolithograph based on painting by David Roberts, 1848. Wikimedia Commons. | “Where are we?” we
might ask in the presence of climate change? Where are our political parties, our media (so often silent about the causes of the wildfires that rage and the floods and hurricanes that roar)?
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Where is our once “supreme court” that just made it more difficult for EPA to do its job and thus buttressed corporate pollution of the planet and the skies?
Rabbi Waskow:
The Jewish tradition views the Jerusalem Temple as a microcosm of the macrocosmic Earth. To the Temple we brought nearness-offerings to the Breath of Life of minerals (salt), vegetation (grain, pancakes. olives, grapes, wine), animals (bulls, sheep, goats, doves), and human song (psalms).
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And so the tradition said to fast for 25 hours of the hot midsummer day, the ninth of Av, from the earthy pleasures: food and water, leather and the gentle anointment of olive oil, sex.
And to chant our grief for the degradation of such joys.
| Youth of Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco, protest for Climate Justice, Earth Day 2022. Photo by Peg Hunter on Flickr.
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What could be more fitting than fasting and wailing as we live in fires, floods, and famines that afflict ever-swelling regions of Earth, choking asthmatically and dying of strange cancers in neighborhoods of poverty and color
subjected to the fumes of nearby burning coal and oil?
To be continued
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If you can't reach Matthew's video on the website, try his Vimeo channel HERE.
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Queries for Contemplation
What thoughts and actions awaken in you on learning of ways to mourn Temple Earth and to undergo common sorrow, grief, hope and action?
See Matthew Fox, “The Cosmic Christ and Deep Ecumenism,” in Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, pp. 228-244.
Banner Image: Roman triumphal arch panel copy from Beth Hatefutsoth, showing Roman soldiers with Jewish prisoners of war and spoils of the Jerusalem temple. From the Beit Al-Diaspora Museum on the Campus of Tel Aviv University. Wikimedia
Commons.
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In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these
mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author or The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
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Stations of the Cosmic Christ
This is a book of meditations on the Cosmic Christ, accompanying the images of 16 wonderful clay tablets by Javier Ullrrich Lemus and M.C. Richards. Together, these images and meditations go far beyond the traditional Stations of the Cross to inspire a spirit awakening and understanding of the cosmic Christ Consciousness, Buddha consciousness, and consciousness of the image of God in all
beings, so needed in our times.
“A divinely inspired book that must be read by every human being devoted to spiritual and global survival. It is cosmically brilliant.” — Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
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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 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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