The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers |
Week of 7/24-29/2023:
Matthew Fox, Creation Spirituality
& the Four Paths 07/30/2023 |
July 24, 2023. Creation Spirituality Steps Out of the Catholic World
Matthew Fox was silenced by the Vatican from 1989-1990, was expelled from the Dominican Order in 1993, and was later forced to leave Holy Names College. In 1996 he moved the Institute in Culture
and Creation Spirituality to downtown Oakland, where it became the University of Creation Spirituality. Matthew is the author of over forty books which have sold more than 1.5 million copies in seventy-nine languages, and he was the recipient of the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award, the Ghandi-King-Ikeda Award from Morehouse College, the International Sufi Award, and the Tikkun Ethics Award. |
July 25, 2023. A Journey Through the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality
Matthew speaks about the Four Paths: The four paths of creation spirituality first emerged for me on examining my own experiences and on encountering Eckhart. It is one thing to talk about the Via Positiva and the Via Negativa, but if you put them together, they are like an electric charge—the positive and negative make
sparks; they make a third thing—the Via Creativa. And that in turn gives birth to a fourth thing: Compassion, Justice, Celebration… The naming of the journey in four paths constitutes the very backbone or structure of creation spirituality. |
The four paths of Creation Spirituality, VP-VN-VC-VT, in Individual Nexus,
by Bernard Amadei. Published with permission of the artist. July 26, 2023. The Via Positiva–What We Can Learn From the Works of Creation
Today we look at some nuggets of wisdom from Matthew Fox’s groundbreaking work, Original Blessing: Creation itself, and not just books, is a source of truth and
revelation. And: The fall/redemption tradition tends to identify death with sin, as if death came into the world as a result of sin. But a reasonable meditation on creation would not come to this conclusion at all. In fact, what we learn by examining nature is that all things have their cycles of life, death, and transformation. |
July 27, 2023. The Gospel of Creation, as told by Jesus: Nature’s Storyteller
One of Jesus’s paths was that
of the storyteller, and he sometimes used nature as a teacher. Indeed, the creatures of nature were his teachers, whom he recognized instinctively were looking “on him with affectionate looks” and with truth to tell. Matthew teaches: “Every creature is a manifestation of the Cosmic Christ, and that divinity permeates all of reality.” To say, as Descartes said, “I think therefore I am” is so egocentric. Rather, Matthew encourages us to say: “The universe and Earth exist and therefore we
are.” |
July 28, 2023.
Creation Spirituality: An Amazing Gathering Place
In this meditation, we look at the amazing diversity that Creation Spirituality embraces. Says Matthew: As a movement, creation spirituality becomes an amazing gathering place, a kind of watering hole for persons whose passion has been touched by the issues of our day—deep ecologists, ecumenists, artists, native peoples, justice activists, feminists, male liberationists, gay and lesbian
peoples, animal liberationists, scientists seeking to reconnect science and wisdom, people of prophetic faith traditions…. All are welcome.
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“The Peaceable Kingdom” woodcut by Fritz Eichenberg
for The Catholic Worker, 1950. Image uploaded to Flickr by Jim Forest. |
July 29, 2023. On God, the Cosmic Christ, Laughter, and Mysticism
Matthew speaks about a “different kind of God.” He says: I look for a different kind of deity from that of the modern era in the coming century: a God of justice, of beauty, of celebration, of
creativity, of truth, of wonder, of mystery, of nature, of humor, of earth and earthiness. And: The creation tradition understands mysticism primarily as our entering the fullness of the mystery of existence, the gift and blessing of creation itself. |
Banner image: “The Medicine Wheel.” (Work in Progress.) The Four Paths are archetypal and the indigenous medicine wheel can offer a beautiful opportunity for meditating on four directions, elements, seasons, paths, etc. Image by Christopher
Paquette on Flickr. |
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 | |
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian
paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that
our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe. | |
See Matthew Fox's full calendar
HERE |
Join Matthew Fox and Brian Swimme in a new 7-week online course hosted by The Shift Network: "Science, Spirituality & the Noosphere: Deepen the Meaning of Your Life & the Power You Hold to Create Fulfillment & Happiness," beginning August 8. Register HERE and receive access to a free introductory video. |
Join Matthew Fox for a Cosmic Mass and Panel Forum at the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions - A Call to Conscience: Defending Freedom & Human Rights,
August 14-18 in Chicago, IL Wed., 8/16, 7:00pm CT - The Cosmic Mass - Honoring Gaia, Solidarity for Our Earth Thurs., 8/17, 1:00pm CT – Panel and Response to The Cosmic Mass Register here: https://parliamentofreligions.org/ |
Creation Spirituality Conversations |
Aaron Perry hosts Matthew Fox on the Y On Earth podcast, on “Hildegard von Bingen & Her “Viriditas,” sharing profound wisdom and deep insights about the essential importance of our relationship with Mother Earth, our celebration of the Divine Feminine, and our
connection with Creation Spirituality, drawing upon centuries of knowledge and wisdom from indigenous and mystical traditions world-wide… particularly from the Rhineland Mystic Movement of the medieval European Renaissance, and a most extraordinary woman at its helm: Hildegard von Bingen. | | |
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