The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers |
Divine Love, Earth Love, Human Love, continued 03/25/2023 |
Many people, in invoking the name of God, think of Judge or Potentate or stern
Father or indifferent, unmoved Mover or cause of Fate. |
That “God is love” represents a profoundly alternative direction for humankind. What kind of love? Love of forests? Of music? Of
eating? Of children? Of lovers? The word “love” is such a broad word, especially in English, that it applies to so many things. But to say God is love is to render God omnipresent, omnifelt, part of everyday life—and of everyday aspiration. | |
For who does not aspire for love? To give love and to receive love? How great is love, how vast, how without limitation? Do all creatures love in some way? Recently I read the
story of a wounded dog, a Doberman named Khan, who after just four days into a new and adopted family with a 17-month-old baby saved that baby’s life by suddenly picking it up by its diaper and tossing it across the yard. |
| At first the bystanders thought the dog was attacking the baby—until they realized the dog took sick very suddenly. Rushing it to the veterinarian, they learned he had been bitten by one of the most venomous snakes on the planet—the |
Mulga—and Khan was near death for days as the vets
struggled to save his life. Instead of killing the baby, the dog had saved its life, had intervened when he saw the snake approaching the tiny child, and put his own life on the line. As it turned out the dog lived. And the child too. Love among the
animals. This too is love; this too is God present. |
Love is present because goodness is present. Aquinas puts it this
way: “God is sheer goodness” and shares an “original goodness” with all creatures. Creatures respond to goodness and that is love. Aquinas: "The habitual or conditioned
appetite for something as for its | Animals respond to love. "Amazing Man Turns Family Farm Into Animal Sanctuary” The Dodo on YouTube |
own good is called love.” And all beings seek
what is for their own good, thus they love. It seems that love permeates the universe then. |
| 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 Matthew Fox, Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God…Including the Unnameable God, p. 2. And Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality, pp. 100f. And Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation
Spirituality, pp. 99f., 108. Banner image: Loving the Earth. Photo by Sean Foster on Unsplash |
Queries for Contemplation Is it your experience that love permeates the universe (which is not to deny the presence of evil as well)? |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and
Useful Names for God …Including the Unnameable God
Too often, notions of God have been used as a means to control and to promote a narrow worldview. In Naming the Unnameable, renowned theologian and author Matthew Fox ignites our imaginations by offering a colorful range of Divine Names gathered from scientists and poets and mystics past and present, inviting us to always begin
where true spirituality begins: from experience.
“This book is timely, important and admirably brief; it is also open ended—there are always more names to come, and none can exhaust God’s nature.” -Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, author of Science Set Free and The Presence of the Past | |
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. | |
Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on
Creation Spirituality Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him. He also translated many of his works such as Biblical commentaries never before in
English (or Italian or German of French). He gives Aquinas a forum so that he can be heard in our own time. He presents Thomas Aquinas entirely in his own words, but in a form designed to allow late 20th-century minds and hearts to hear him in a fresh way.
“The teaching of Aquinas comes through will a fullness and an insight that has never been present in English before and [with] a vital message for the world today.” ~ Fr. Bede Griffiths
(Afterword). | |
See Matthew Fox's full calendar
HERE Join Matthew Fox and 15 other renowned presenters as they share visions and teachings and lead practices drawn from spiritual wisdom, scientific insight, and time-tested experiential methods of dealing with death and dying. March 23, 11:00 AM to March 26, 9:45 pm. Matthew’s Presentation: “Tibetan Reincarnation and Christian Resurrection: Parallel Possibilities?” Sunday
March 26, 8:00am - 9:00am PT. Register HERE. |
Karen Tate interviews Matthew on his latest book Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality to discuss religious vs. spiritual, the nature of evil and angels,
compassion vs pity, and wisdom vs knowledge. On Voices of the Sacred Feminine with Karen Tate, Wednesday, March 29, 11:00am PT. Learn more HERE. Join Matthew Fox online as he offers a Worship Service Inspirational Message - “Otto Rank, and Pere Chenu: Two 'Real, Raw and Radiant' Guides calling us to Deep Freedom” for
Brentwood Inspired Living Center, Sunday, April 16, 10:00 am PT. Learn more HERE. Join Matthew Fox as he discusses “Creativity – Where the Divine and the Human Meet” in an Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat. Thursday, April 20, 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. | |
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