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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Merton on Advent, Night and Repose
as Feminine |
There is something feminine and maternal about Advent and winter. One reader of our daily meditations wrote in the Comments section a few days ago about “Repose in the womb of the
Mother.” |
Gestation is a kind of repose in the womb of the Mother (but a very active repose because a lot is going on in those nine months of repose). Clearly, there follows from repose
and the expectant waiting the via creativa of birth. Here too Thomas Merton has much to say. In speaking of the Prometheus painted by Aeschylus (as opposed to the dour Prometheus of Hesiod), he sings about how Prometheus’s
rebellion …is the rebellion of life against inertia and death, of mercy and love | |
against tyranny, of humanity
against cruelty and arbitrary violence. And Prometheus calls upon the feminine, the wordless, the tirelessly moving element to witness his suffering. Earth hears him. Earth as mother hears the cry of the
poor. Patriarchy rarely does. It is often too busy inflicting suffering and steeling itself against the cries of the victims of its sadism and compulsion to control. Listening is invariably shallow in those circumstances—it does not want to go deep to hear the suffering of the afflicted. It is very unmotherly therefore. |
“Prometheus Bound.” Brief animated film based on Aeschylus’ play. Produced by Peter Dodd & Catrin Unwin of manateeidol. | But wisdom is different from that. Wisdom listens deeply. Merton writes about Hagia Sofia or Holy Wisdom this way: Hagia Sofia is the dark, nameless Ousia [being] of the Father, the Son and the Holy |
Ghost, the incomprehensible, ‘primordial’ darkness which is infinite light….Hence Sophia is the feminine, dark yielding, tender part of the power, justice, creative dynamism of the Father. He writes about a “nameless
God” that he associates with rest and tenderness of the night. |
The shadows fall. The stars appear. The birds begin to sleep. Night embraces the silent half of the
earth. A vagrant and destitute wanderer with dusty feet, finds his way down a new road. A homeless God, lost in the night, without papers, without identification, without even a number, a frail expendable exile lies down in desolation under the sweet stars of the world and entrusts Himself to sleep. There exists a universal slumbering and Wisdom comes to bring sleep | |
and also to awaken us from our sleep. And God can be homeless and nameless and destitute and with dusty feet. This too is
advent. |
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Adapted from Matthew Fox, A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, pp. 149f., 161-163. Banner Image: “Homeless Christ” Icon by Kelly Latimore, Commissioned by Alex Spenik. Used with permission. To purchase, click HERE. |
Queries for Contemplation Do you also experience Divinity as a dark, nameless one who is also homeless, destitute, without papers, in exile, and with dusty feet? 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. |
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 | |
See Matthew Fox's full calendar 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. Join Robert Holden and Matthew Fox for A WINTER OF IMAGINATION – a mystical journey in three 75-minute webinars that reveal the spiritual invitation and deeper meaning of Advent,
the Solstice, and Christmas time. Thursdays 12/15 ("Advent for Mystics"), 12/19 ("A Solstice Meditation"), and 12/22 ("Soul of Christmas"), 12 pm PT/3 pm ET/8 pm UK. 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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