The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
Poems from the Palestinian Camps 10/25/2023 |
We have been meditating on our need for and capacity for compassion. In times of rupture, it is good to go to poets for the truth. I highly recommend the recent article in The New Yorker by Palestinian poet/author Mosab abu Toha, who was born and grew up in Gaza. He and his family are currently sheltering in a refugee camp north of the city. |
On the Facebook page where he chronicles the life of Gaza under siege–memorial photos of family members, neighbors, and friends lost to the Israeli bombardment, scenes of ordinary people navigating the unthinkable, pleas for the world community to take action–Mosab posts excerpts of his poems. With his permission, I offer a few here. |
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The houses were not Hamas.
The kids were not
Hamas.
Their clothes and toys were not Hamas.
The neighborhood was not Hamas.
The air was not Hamas.
Our ears were not Hamas.
Our eyes were not Hamas.
The one who ordered the killing,
the one who pressed the button
thought only of Hamas.* Shrapnel Looking for Laughter
The house has been bombed. Everyone dead:
The kids, the parents, the toys, the actors on TV,
characters in novels, personas in poetry collections,
the I, the he and the she. No pronouns left. Not even for kids when they learn parts of speech
next year. Shrapnel flies in the dark,
looks for the family’s peals of
laughter hiding behind piles of disfigured
walls and bleeding picture frames.** Palestine Trauma Centre (UK) presents Mosab Abu Toha reading three of his poems of life in Gaza. |
We Are Looking For Palestine We stuff our suitcases with pictures and memories.
They feel very heavy on the ground;
we can’t carry them, neither can the roads.
They scar the surface of the earth. We get lost in the past, present, and future. When a child is born, we feel sad for him or her. A child is born to suffer here, sir! A mother feels the great pain in labor.
A child cries after leaving the dark, but secure place. In Palestine, it is always dark. In Palestine, children always
cry. |
Sir, we are not welcome anywhere.
Only cemeteries don’t mind our
bodies. We are no longer looking for Palestine.
We are dying.
Soon, Palestine will search for us,
for our whispers, for our footsteps,
for our fading pictures fallen off aging walls
of silence.*** |
Banner Image: “Scenes from Gaza Crisis 2014.” A father and son carry away remnants of their lives from the rubble of their home destroyed by Israeli
strikes in Towers Al-andaa – the northern Gaza Strip. United Nations Photo on Flickr Queries for Contemplation What do these poems say to your heart? And to your government? |
Responses are welcomed. To read the Comments or join in the conversation by adding your own, please click HERE 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 |
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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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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. |
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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