The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers |
How Concepts Assist Our Spiritual Journey’s Deepening, ii 03/15/2023 |
Adam Bucko and I are continuing our dialog in our book, Occupy
Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation on the topic of spiritual experience and the assistance that concepts offer to expanding and deepening spiritual experiences. Specifically, we are talking here about the four paths of creation spirituality. |
Matthew Fox says: The goal of social justice and the via transformativa is that the whole community can live life fully. It’s about the
celebration of life. If you’ve left that out of your path because | Weaving above, below, in and out: the four paths wind through our lives. CloudPusher. |
you’re so married to being a warrior twenty-four hours a
day, seven days a week, then first of all you’re going to run out of steam and burn out; but also you’re not going to taste what it is you’re really trying to bring about, which is the justice that allows the celebration of life to come alive (the via positiva). So there is a danger that any one of these paths can be an end in itself. That’s one of the great values of the four paths–to remind us that we move in and out, in and out. That’s how they feed one another, and that’s literally how one stays young, because one is staying spiritually alive. Adam Bucko responds: I agree, the Four Paths are extremely useful here. They really deal with all of life and all of what we are and are
capable of as human beings. If you don’t have the whole picture, it’s easy to just take one of those paths and practice it, thinking that it’s the whole path. And it’s not. |
The four paths of Creation Spirituality, VP-VN-VC-VT, in Individual Nexus, by engineer Bernard Amadei. Published with permission of the
artist. | I think that the beauty of the Four Paths is that they really reconcile different schools of spirituality that perhaps traditionally have not always agreed with each other. They reconcile things like action and contemplation, and contemplation and creativity, creativity and social justice. |
Fox: You apply them to your work with young street people, don’t you? Bucko: For our first few meetings with homeless youth, we focus on two questions: “What breaks your heart?” and “What makes you truly alive?” We spend about one week on each question. Fox: Your two questions sound like you are asking about the role of the via negativa and the via positiva respectfully in each of their lives. Bucko: The goal is not
to answer these questions. The goal is to be present to them with all that we are. |
| 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 today's post on the website directly, click HERE.
If you can't reach Matthew's video on the website, try his Vimeo channel HERE. |
Adapted from Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality, pp. 198f. And Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation, pp. 20-25, 93. Banner Image: Rainbow spiral. The spiral is an ancient symbol representing birth/death, creativity/destruction, tension/release. Photo by Reid Zura on
Unsplash. |
Queries for Contemplation Ask yourself the two questions Adam Bucko poses to street youth: What breaks your heart? And What makes you truly alive? Live with both the questions and answers for a while. |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
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. | |
Occupy Spirituality: A
Radical Vision for a New Generation Authors Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox encourage us to use our talents in service of compassion and justice and to move beyond our broken systems–economic, political, educational, and
religious–discovering a spirituality that not only helps us to get along, but also encourages us to reevaluate our traditions, transforming them and in the process building a more sacred and just world. Incorporating the words of young activist leaders culled from interviews and surveys, the book provides a framework that is deliberately interfaith and speaks to our profound yearning for a life with spiritual purpose and for a better world. “Occupy Spirituality is a powerful, inspiring, and vital call to embodied awareness and enlightened actions.” ~~ Julia Butterfly Hill, environmental activist and author of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods | |
See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE |
Join Matthew Fox for a lecture and Q&A on “The Reinvention of Work – A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time” in an Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat, Thursday, March 16, 4:00-6:00 pm PT.
Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox and 20 other presenters as we take inspiration from the Dalai Lama’s vision, kindness, humility, and wisdom and explore how to navigate our increasingly uncertain
world with compassion, goodness, and virtue. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox and Isa Gucciardi for a new Dialog & Q&A on “ Liberation and Salvation: Healing Teachings in Buddhism & Christianity” at Convergence Hosted by Cameron
Trimble, Tuesday, March 21, 4:00-6:00 pm PT Register HERE. Creation Spirituality Conversations |
Matthew Fox speaks on "Jung and Teilhard in Dialogue" to the Creation Spirituality Communities at their Global Kinship event in January 2023. | |
Please share this post! Just click the buttons below.
OR share your insights on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #RevDrMatthewFox and tag Matt with @RevDrMatthewFox
|
|
|
|
