The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
The Archetype of the
Spiritual Warrior 10/09/2023 |
Thomas Berry talks about “the Great Work” that is calling all of us today. What is this Great Work? It is “the task of moving modern industrial civilization from its present devastating influence on the Earth, to a more benign mode of
presence.” |
It requires real warriors who steer moral outrage and powers of aggression and competition into more positive directions. As Berry put it, the Great Work is
“not a role that we have chosen. It is a role given to us.” That is, to a generation that is waking up to the destruction we have been doing to the Earth. He warns that “the nobility of our lives, however, depends upon” how we respond to this call. |
Photo of Fr. Thomas Berry, “Geologian” taken from his website. |
The archetype of the spiritual warrior helps us to steer our aggression and competition into healthy directions. Aggression is in all of us, whether athlete or preacher, business person or taxi driver, including notions of “I can’t win unless you lose” and more. |
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| How do we turn aggression into nobility, to use Berry’s term? To me, the key is understanding the distinction between a warrior and a solider. They are not the same, as I have learned from indigenous people I have known. |
Broken Walk is a veteran who went to the Vietnam war at seventeen. Says he: There’s a difference between being a soldier and being a warrior. Don’t ever get these two confused. When I was in the army, I was a
solder. I was a puppet doing whatever anybody told me to do, even if it means going against what my heart told me was right. |
I didn’t know nothing about being a warrior, until I hit the streets and marched alongside my brothers for something I really believe in. When I found something I believe in, a higher power found me. That’s
it. That’s the story. |
A PBS special spotlights Native American service in the armed forces during the Vietnam War. Video by KARE 11. |
Adapted from Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 77f. Banner
image: On Grand Canyon Native American Heritage Day in 2010, the Dishchii' Bikoh' Apache Group from Cibecue, Arizona, demonstrates the Apache Crown Dance. Photo by Grand Canyon National Park. Wikimedia Commons. |
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Queries for Contemplation Do you agree that spiritual warriorhood is needed to bring about deep transformation in oneself and in society? And that this is very different from soldierhood, and has a lot to do with listening to the heart? |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
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 |
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______________________________________________________________________________________ UPCOMING EVENTS See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE Join Matthew Fox online as he lectures and responds to questions on his book, 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 and other speakers in the 27th Howard Thurman Convocation and Reception, recognizing the recent designation of The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples as an historical San Francisco landmark, founded by Dr. Howard Thurman and Dr. Alfred Fisk as the nation’s first
interracial, interfaith congregation. Sunday, October 15, 2023, 3:00pm PT. Learn more HERE. Matthew Fox will be featured as the guest speaker at the Creation Spirituality Communities online course, Introduction to Creation Spirituality 6-Week Course, led by Instructor Rev. Mary Reaman. Tuesday, October 17, 4:00 PM 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. |
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