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Meditations with Matthew Fox
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A Festival of Faiths: Sacred Stories |
It was my pleasure this past week to participate in the “Festival of Faiths” in Louisville, Kentucky. This annual event has been going on for 26 years and the theme for 2022 was “Sacred Stories: Contemplation and
Connection.” |
Many and diverse spiritual teachers, scientists, politicians and activists spoke and dialogued. Rituals from various traditions of 45 minutes each were practiced each
morning. | Matthew Fox onstage at the Festival of Faiths with the Four Element puppet family. Photo by Douglass Beechwood, used with permission. To see a recording
of Matthew’s presentation on spiritual practices, click HERE. |
I was invited to share a workshop on “Significant Stories for Our Times” and to lead a morning ritual and also a brief ritual to close the event. The presenters and topics treated can be found HERE. Louisville holds special meaning to me because it is the field of Thomas Merton and his
monastery. Several times I have been invited to speak by the Thomas Merton Center there including on the centennial of Merton’s birthday. It was from that talk that I birthed my book on Merton, A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey. |
Frida Kahlo as Our Lady of Guadalupe, Rachel Carson, Rosa Parks as the Black Madonna, and Elizabeth Cody Stanton as St. Hildegard of Bingen at the 2014
Cosmic Mass at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. Photo by Mary Plaster, used with permission. | Louisville is also significant for me because we have long had a very active creation spirituality group there with lively leadership from Mark Steiner, a graduate of our creation spirituality master’s program. |
In Mark’s garage the last nine years has been housed a wonderful family of four puppets—Earth, Air, Fire, Water—created by Mary Plaster, a puppet-making artist who lives in Duluth, Minnesota and is a graduate of our University of Creation Spirituality. She has also created giant puppets of Mahatma Gandhi, MLK, Jr., Rosa Parks, Hildegard of Bingen and other notables that have all made appearances at our Cosmic Masses over the years. I asked Mark to bring the four puppet beings to the events I led. A “Festival” on Sacred Stories should include such visitors as these to celebrate the most sacred story of all–our creation story. The original blessing of Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit is the primary sacred story, as Thomas Berry
insists. |
A high point for me was the final panel that consisted of eight activists, many of them young, who have helped gather Louisvillians in response to the marches and troubles that occurred due
to the Breonna Taylor murder by police in 2020. As an elder, I was deeply moved by the candor, wisdom and honest interaction of these leaders, all of whom were younger than myself. It gave me
hope that the upcoming generations are stepping up to the plate in the midst of the many moral and spiritual and political struggles we face as a species. | |
I found truth-telling and courage—big hearts—busy at work, thus fulfilling the best definition of hope I know, “hope is a verb with the sleeves rolled up.” Thank you to all who make the “Festival of Faiths” possible. |
| 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, A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey. And Fox, Christian Mystics, pp. 359, 361, 365. Banner
Image: The four element puppets at the Festival of Faiths were created by mixed-media artist Mary Plaster for the 2013 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. They debuted at the Energy for Change Rally, where the puppet often identified as the Sun represented solar energy, the puppet identified as Water represented hydra-energy, the puppet
identified as Earth represented geo-thermal energy, and the puppet identified as Air represented wind energy. |
Queries for Contemplation How does it feel to you to hear about a “Festival of Faiths” as distinct from a “Competition of Faiths” or “an Intellectual Comparison of Faiths” or a “Rivalry of Faiths” or a “Symposium on Faiths”? |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
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 | |
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. | |
See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE |
Join Matthew Fox for the monthly Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat, discussing Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality. Thursday, November 17,
4:00pm-6:00pm PT. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox for the monthly Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat, discussing Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations. Thursday, December 15,
4:00pm-6:00pm PT Register HERE. Creation Spirituality Conversations |
In a podcast episode with the Earth and Spirit Center, Matthew Fox reflects on how creation-centered spirituality, and the marriage of the divine feminine and sacred masculine, can help us respond with hope
to the troubles of our apocalyptic times. Listen HERE. | |
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