The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox
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Funding Solidarity and Compassion, Not War 10/21/2023
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In yesterday’s meditations I raised the all-important question, “Can humanity survive without compassion?” |
Of course we can broaden it to ask, “Can the earth as we know it, with all its beautiful and wondrous creatures survive without human compassion?” Compassion is the most important energy on earth. It needs to be mined and developed. |
“Israeli Amir and Palestinian Amjad: ‘we are no enemies!'” Amir says, “It’s normal to help each other. Forget about bloody politics. Think about humanity.” By Nieuwsuur |
All peoples and all religions need to devote ourselves to that at this perilous time in human and planetary history. A
beautiful story emerged this week born of an evil happening in Chicago when a boy was murdered (and his mother attacked) because he was Muslim. Five Jewish rabbis, in an act of solidarity, attended the boy’s funeral.* That is compassion in action. |
Palestinian-American boy's last words to his mom. @
Reuters | We need a calming of the reptilian brain that
we can call “contemplation” and which is also an influx of peace (and delight as Aquinas insists). It comes with gazing on the Divine in any form or none. |
Thomas Aquinas teaches that the first effect of love is melting. The rabbis act melts hatred between religions and peoples and acknowledges the “fellowship of all peoples” that Howard Thurman promoted. With the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Gaza, let this be a lesson for those who prefer murder to caring. |
Isn’t it time to think of “defense” as defense against humanity’s darkest angels and the shadows we carry around inside of us? Isn’t defense about more than tanks and bombs and rockets? Isn’t it time to finance ways to deconstruct hatred? And defuse violence? And eliminate |
“What is Peace Studies? – Introduction to the study of conflict and the practice of peacebuilding.” John Filson |
poverty such as Gaza has been mired in for generations? And defending Mother Earth from corporate rape and wars? Humanity has to move from the reptilian brain option (“I win, you lose”) which patriarchy is so enamored of, to funding our powers of compassion, caring and emptying, what Thurman called being “stripped to the literal substance of ourselves before God.” We need to invest more in compassion and less in spirals of violence. Our only future is compassion. |
Queries for Contemplation Do you agree that humanity’s only future and the only future for the Earth as we know it in all its diversity and wonder is Compassion? What follows from that?
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A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a
profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity. “Well worth our deepest
consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register |
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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 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.
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Join Matthew Fox as he delivers a Lecture and Q&A: “Towards a New Mythology: New & Ancient Names for God from Mystical Ancestors and Contemporary Science (& Fit for Some Atheists too)” as part of the Unitarian Universalist of Berkeley Lawrence Lecture Series. Friday, November 10, 2023, 7:00pm-8:30pm PT. 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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Inspired by this post? Share your insights on Universeodon, Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #RevDrMatthewFox and tag Matt with @RevDrMatthewFox FOLLOW MATTHEW FOX:
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