The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers |
Earth Day 2023:
Lessons of Celebrating & Exulting 04/22/2023 |
Let us celebrate today, Earth Day, with joy and gusto and gratitude. Let us rejoice not at what we have made but what Earth and the cosmos has made over 14 billion years and has invited us
aboard. |
If we have learned anything from the Webb Telescope and the amazing stories emerging about our universe, it is this: Earth is special. We are just the right distance from the sun, we have just the right tilt so seasons occur to grow things, just the right distance from the moon that tides invite sea creatures to come on land, lots and lots of water, and so much
more. | Celebrating Earth and Cosmos. Photo by Joshua Fuller on Unsplash |
Look around you. Look at your dog or cat or horse and feel their thoughtful and caring presence. Taste their beauty. Meditate on the
birds and so many animals and fishes—the four legged ones and finned ones, the winged ones and the slithering ones, all doing their thing, all contributing to their own kind and to the rest of us. |
And we, the
two legged ones, can study creatures and their origins and learn why it works and how it works and for how long it has been working—isn’t that something? Isn’t it something that we are here too? To take it all in? We are late comers but we are here. |
| And why are we here? Might it be to enjoy and celebrate along with all the other creatures doing their best to be beautiful and joyful? As Thomas Berry reminds us—“in the end the universe can only be explained in terms of |
celebration. It is all an exultant expression of existence itself.” |
Are we exultant? Are we celebrating? Are we giving thanks this Earth Day 2023? Are we taught to be celebrating and are we teaching our young to celebrate the earth? If not, what are we teaching them instead? What is more important than that? |
Yes, we may someday discover an exoplanet similar to ours and if so, that would be wonderful. But today, Earth day 2023, this we know: Such a place will be very, very far away. And we–we are home in a wondrous place that is utterly | |
welcoming to our species. And diverse. And beautiful. And exultant. |
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations, p. 363. And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth. Banner image: “The Blue Marble: The View From Apollo 17. Fifty years ago, on April 22, 1970, people around the world marked the first Earth Day.” NASA |
Queries for Contemplation What do you learn from dogs and cats, plants and trees, rocks and fishes, sun and moon and sky? |
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Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and
Action
By Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jen Listug In the midst of global fire, earthquake and flood – as species are going extinct every day and
national and global economies totter – the planet doesn’t need another church or religion. What it needs is a new Order, grounded in the Wisdom traditions of both East and West, including science and indigenous. An Order of the Sacred Earth united in one sacred vow: “I promise to be the best lover and defender of the Earth that I can be.”
Co-authored by Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jennifer Berit Listug, with a forward by David Korten, this
collection of essays by 21 spiritual visionaries including Brian Swimme, Mirabai Starr, Theodore Richards, and Kristal Parks marks the founding of the diverse and inclusive Order of the Sacred Earth, a community now evolving around the world.
“The Order of the Sacred Earth not only calls us home to our true nature as Earth, but also offers us invaluable guidance and company on the way.” ~~ Joanna Macy, environmental activist and author of Active
Hope. | |
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings &
Meditations As Matthew Fox notes, when an aging Albert Einstein was asked if he had any regrets, he replied, “I wish I had read more of the mystics earlier in my life.” 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 Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in crisis, and we need road maps that can ground us I 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 mediations. Study and practice these teachings. Take what’s in this book and teach it to the youth because the new generation cannot afford to suffer the spirit and ethical illiteracy of the past.” — Adam Bucko, spiritual activist and co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation for Homeless Youth | |
Original Blessing: A
Primer in Creation Spirituality Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often
neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The
Universe Story | |
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the
Peoples of the Earth Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious
and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice. | |
See Matthew Fox's full calendar
HERE |
Join Matthew Fox and Charles Burack in an online conversation on “The Essential Writings On Creation Spirituality” hosted by The Aquarian Minyan. Thursday, April
27, 6:00 pm PT. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox as he discusses “The Physics of Angels – Exploring the Realm Where Science and Spirit Meet” in an Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat. Thursday,
May 18, 4:00-6:00 pm PT. Register HERE.
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Creation Spirituality Conversations |
Phil Goldberg of Spirit Matters: Conversations on Contemporary Spirituality interviews Matthew Fox on Opening to Original Blessing. To listen to their conversation, click HERE | |
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