The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox _________________________________________________________________________________ |
Finding the Nobility Inside, continued 09/18/2023 ______________________________________________________________________________________ |
This past Saturday, in meditating on a healthier masculinity, we learned of a powerful phrase from a Native American prison chaplain who summarized my book on the Sacred Masculine with this phrase: “Finding the nobility inside.” |
Isn’t that what spirituality is all about? Our finding the nobility inside, and acting on that, in preference to, let us say, the envy inside or the violence inside or the greed or avarice or fear or self-hating or... inside? |
The “cardinal virtues” act as an antidote to the envy, wrath, avarice, etc. inside us. Video by hochelaga. |
Père Chenu thinks so. He actually defines spirituality as our nobility. That is what spirituality is: Making touch with the nobility inside. |
The earliest known portrait of Augustine in a 6th century fresco, Lateran, Rome. Unknown author. Wikimedia Commons. | Original Blessing is a term I coined for the same reality. That all beings are original blessings, from the universe itself, to our Earth, to all the creatures on it (I know my dog is), to each human on Earth.“Blessing,” we recall is just a theological word for “good” or “goodness” or “exhibiting the good” or “sharing the good.” We are all born original blessings—humans too—no matter what neuroses plagued St. Augustine around his sexuality that he could not control—Augustine being the one who came up with the idea of "original sin" |
in the
fourth century, and who equated it with our sexuality. No Jew—Jesus included—has ever heard about original sin. It is not in |
the Bible. Elie Wiesel tells us that the idea of original sin is not only not in the Bible, "it is alien to Jewish thinking.” The Jews, Jesus included, have heard about original blessing or its equivalent however, since, if you check
it out, the first page of the Bible (Genesis 1) speaks of the various items of creation as good, as good, as good and then, after humans arrive (believe it or not) the entire circle of creation is called very good. How about that?
|
|
______________________________________________________________________________________ Adapted from Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality, pp. 42-56. See also Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 3-18. Banner Image: Two classes, both noble: Men in process of rebuilding Seattle
after its 1889 fire, in front of Jacob Furth’s house. Furth, founder of Puget Sound National Bank, had a reputation for putting the city before his own business interests. Photo from MOHAI, Seattle Historical Society Collection. Wikimedia Commons. ______________________________________________________________________________________ |
|
| 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.
|
______________________________________________________________________________________ Queries for Contemplation How do you recover the sense of your nobility or original blessing when it has been compromised? How do you assist others to do the same? ______________________________________________________________________________________ Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. ______________________________________________________________________________________ |
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 Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox
calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often
unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God |
|
______________________________________________________________________________________ UPCOMING EVENTS See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE ______________________________________________________________________________________ Join Matthew Fox and a speaker’s panel for brief Creation Spirituality presentations, music, songs, prayer, and refreshments in a free online and on-site Celebration of Matthew Fox's donation of papers to the University of Colorado, Boulder. University of Colorado Boulder Libraries – Center for British & Irish Studies – 5th Floor Thursday, September 21, 4:00pm-6:00pm PT RSVP HERE for on-site attendance only. Virtual attendance link will be forthcoming. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Join Matthew Fox online as he lectures and responds to questions on his book on Meister Eckhart, A Spirituality Named Compassion. The event is hosted by the Weber Retreat and Conference Center. Thursday, October 12, 2023 , 4:00pm-5:30pm PT. Learn more HERE. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Join Matthew Fox as he discusses “A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity” in an Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat, Thursday, October 19, 4:00-6:00 pm PT. To register, click HERE. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Join Matthew Fox for two days of learning and practice as he speaks at the online Stanford
Medicine Contemplation by Design Summit, Wednesday and Thursday, November 1-2, 2023. Wed 4:00pm-5:30pm PT – Lecture, Q&A – Grounding & Expanding, Psyche & Cosmos, Friendship with Self, Others, the Universe: Toward a “Cosmic Religion” (Einstein) and Human/Planetary Survival Thu
7:30am-8:15am – Guided Practice – Finding the Divine (the “I am”, the Christ, the Buddha Nature, the Tselem or Image of God) Within Thu 12:00pm-1:30pm – Workshop – Recovering the Sacred Masculine and the Divine Feminine Register HERE. |
______________________________________________________________________________________ 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. |
|
______________________________________________________________________________________ |
______________________________________________________________________________________ |
______________________________________________________________________________________ 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 FOLLOW MATTHEW FOX: Twitter
Instagram ______________________________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
|
